Practice Advice

My very dear one,
I hope you are well and had a good sleep after I left. I was thinking to call you but I think maybe during the daytime there it might be inconvenient. I will be sending you some altar cloths from Hong Kong to go behind the Lama Tsongkhapa statues, for the background, to brighten up the altar. The altar has been done very nicely with very nice wood, but I thought the background would look very good with some nice cloth; it would be brighter and more uplifting for the mind. Also, I will send some different-colored cloths for the right and left sides of the altar, to place over the wood and the top part. It could be very nicely designed Chinese cloth that is often used to cover tables, which has peacocks, dragons, and beautiful flowers on it. The base could be red, orange, or yellow.

I saw some examples in Hong Kong when I was shopping so I am asking one of the students in Hong Kong to buy them for me. I bought some cloth the last time I was in Hong Kong so she knows what I chose before and liked. I know two people who can sew the cloth. They have already made other things.

I enjoyed very much staying at your house. I liked your new house very much and next time I thought maybe I would practice different ways of swimming. I want to learn to do the style where you lie on your back in the water. In India, when I was in Buxa, which is an extremely hot place, I learned to swim with two other incarnate lamas. We were all studying with Geshe Rabten Rinpoche, who was my first philosophy teacher. In Buxa there was a little river that we swam in. The two other lamas knew how to swim well, the style where your feet move up and down in the water, but my swimming was a little bit like a frog’s movement, my feet weren’t coming out of the water, just moving under the water.

I thought that one of the benefits of knowing how to swim is if an airplane falls into the ocean then you are able to survive by swimming. Also, I heard it was very good for arthritis and maybe the heart and diabetes, I am not sure. Anyway, maybe we can have a competition next time and I can compete with you and the children.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for all your past support and service that you have given, as well as contributing to the daily expenses of my house, the food, electricity, garden, car, offerings to the Sangha, and the offerings (saffron, flowers, fruit), etc. As I have mentioned to you before, you are always in my prayers, in my heart, and I always dedicate merits to you.

I would like to chat with you about the Mahakala thangka that you have and why it came to you. Usually you look for a protector but in your case the protector looked for you, so from this you can see that you have a special connection with Mahakala. Also, I checked this and it seems that you do have a very strong connection with Mahakala. It seems very auspicious the way the thangka came to you and also about the monk who did the retreat and then painted the thangka. His art is very good and, I think, very auspicious.

A monk has made a new cover for the thangka. I told him to offer tea to Mahakala and do the protector prayers and torma offering for Mahakala when he brings the new cover over,. You can do these practices with him, or be there when he does these pujas.

It is very good if you can offer torma (just some cake or any food) each day to Mahakala. Maybe your helper can change it every day, along with the water bowls. As well as a torma, it is very good if you can offer tea every day to Mahakala. You can offer the tea in a very nice bowl with a saucer; you can offer any kind of tea and recite the offering prayer with a bodhicitta motivation while making the tea offering and bless it with OM AH HUM (recite three times). Think that the tea has become an ocean of nectar, the essence of which is transcendental wisdom, non-dual bliss voidness. This is the highest, ultimate and real meaning of nectar. It is not the kind of nectar that devas and worldly gods enjoy, but nectar according to tantra. What you visualize and what the Buddha sees is transcendental wisdom, non-dual bliss voidness; the nature is infinite bliss, non-dual with emptiness.

Don’t think you are just offering tea to the painting, think that you are offering to Buddha in actuality, whose essence is the guru, the primordial wisdom, the dharmakaya, the most subtle mind which is experiencing infinite bliss and is non-dual with emptiness. The dharmakaya is the absolute guru bound with infinite compassion, which manifests into various forms of Buddha. The sambhogakaya aspect is the highest bodhisattvas. Ordinary bodhisattvas are the nirmanakaya—the more ordinary aspect that guides sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering, particularly the lower realms, and guides them from happiness to happiness to enlightenment, by revealing various methods. This is the same way to think whenever you offer to Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, thinking of him as one with the guru, which collects vast amounts of merit. In the same way, when you make offerings or prayers to Mahakala, regard him as the same as the guru.

In my last email to you I wanted to mention these two stories, but forgot. When I was staying in Boston at a house on a lake, I was going to surprise the people there by showing them my swimming, as they had never seen me swim. I had a bathing suit that someone bought for me many years ago. I have only used it a few times, mainly in hotels when I have showers, but I don’t think I have used it at a beach. So, I stepped toward the water on the sand, my idea was to go in the water and show them my swimming. As I stepped on the sand suddenly the water pulled me down and I was drowning. The water went in my mouth and I didn’t know what to do. I raised my hand up to ask for help. One of the people was in the water close to me so I grabbed him and held on to him while I was asking for help. Someone else was making a video on the shore.

This reminds me of when I was very small, maybe five or six, and my alphabet teacher and uncle told me not to go and see the Western tourists who were camping close by on the other side of the river, high up in a very remote area near Mount Everest. However, I was so curious that I didn’t listen to my teacher and I went anyway. I took a plate with potatoes on it for them. To get to them I had to cross a bridge that was made of two logs tied together. As I crossed the bridge they started to sway. I felt dizzy and fell into the freezing cold river. The water covered my head and it was extremely deep. My head started to go under the water and each time it came up I could see my alphabet teacher running from far, far away toward me. He was holding up his trousers as he ran as fast as he could. Now I am very different, much older, and with much more negative karma, but at that time, what I remember is that I didn’t have the slightest fear of death, and even though I had no idea of emptiness, the thought came into my mind as I was drowning that what is labeled (called) Lawudo Lama is now going to die. That was the thought that arose. However, I am still alive, having the opportunity to practice Dharma and teach, so this is through the kindness of my second alphabet teacher, as it was he who grabbed me out of the river. I heard afterwards that the Western tourists had been taking pictures of me while I was drowning and being carried away by the river. The person making a video of me at the lake reminded me of this story.

In Boston they then gave me a rubber inner tube that I sat in and they pulled me along by a boat. Later I told the person who saved me, that his being there and my being able to wrap myself around him to stay afloat in the water was equal to a one-year Vajrasattva retreat; this was a joke. Anyway, sorry, you must be very busy and here I am chatting to you.

Also, I have one other point to mention to you, which I haven’t mentioned before. According to the text, it says that the cupboard containing the wealth vases needs to be a yellow color and to have the eight auspicious signs painted on it on the outside. If you are wondering why yellow, it is because according to the text there are four actions—peaceful, wrathful, increasing and controlling. Yellow is the color of increasing and so is appropriate for a wealth vase cupboard.

Either a monk I know or a Tibetan artist can paint the cupboard, as well as painting the auspicious signs. Also, they can paint symbols of wealth on the outside, such as a vase filled with jewels or a mongoose vomiting jewels—any auspicious signs or wealth symbols are appropriate. I am sure the black-colored wood you have used is very, very good, but these colors and signs are part of the instructions in the texts.

With much love and prayers...