Regretting a Past Relationship and Feeling Angry
Rinpoche gave the following advice to a student who had been in a relationship and then afterwards had become very negative about it.
My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter and news. Regarding what you have explained about your past relationship and the anger, just accept the karma and don’t get angry about the past. It will only make it worse for you now and bring suffering in the future.
Not only accept the karma, but use it to receive and experience the obstacles of all sentient beings. Keep the vow you have taken to experience all those obstacles and heavy negative karma, and let them have all happiness up to enlightenment.
Since this has happened, you should use it. I think this is better and more useful than generating regret. Instead, purify the negative karma using tonglen, thinking that you have received all sentient beings’ negative karma and defilements, particularly obstacles and broken vows, and experience it for them. In other words, use the experience to develop bodhicitta, exchanging and giving up oneself for sentient beings and cherishing sentient beings. This is the method for transforming this suffering into happiness and obstacles into support, to achieve enlightenment and to enlighten all sentient beings.
According to my observations, it came out best for you to recite 100,000 Vajrasattva mantras, not only to purify negative karma created recently but to purify negative karma created since beginningless time.
Also, the most powerful thing for you to do is self-initiation, if not the long version then the short version, every day. If you can’t do it every day, then twice a month on the 10th and 25th days of the Tibetan calendar, or any other day, or at least once a month. That will take care of so much, to liberate you, and purify all negative karma collected in this life and past lives, and definitely plant the seed of the four kayas in your mind, to achieve the completion path. It also purifies negative karma, broken pratimoksha vows, bodhisattva vows, and tantric vows and restores them. Self-initiation takes care of a lot. This is my suggestion to you, to at least do the short self-initiation every day.
So, enjoy your life. Think of your buddha nature and how you still have an incredible opportunity to benefit so many sentient beings.
With much love and prayers...