Sutra of Golden Light

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
If you can, read the Golden Light Sutra quite often, if possible six thousand times, but I think if you can, just continue reciting some amount every day and in this way continually keep reading it.

Make sure to always read it for numberless sentient beings to achieve enlightenment—for them to be free from samsara and achieve enlightenment—especially sentient beings in this universe, in this world. Also for your family, for their enlightenment—for them to be free from samsara and achieve enlightenment.

If you can recite this sutra, it will help world peace and help pacify problems in the world. Thank you.

With much love and prayers ...

1. Sutra recitations

• Arya Sanghata Sutra recitation: once a week, and
• Golden Light Sutra recitation: three times each week.

Of course, before reciting either of these sutras, you must motivate that you are doing this for the benefit of all sentient beings. You must recite the sutras with bodhicitta.

You can read some of the sutra each day but you don’t have to finish it that day, you can spread it out through the week. Motivate for the numberless sentient beings of the six realms, from whom you have received all your past happiness since beginningless samsara, as well as your future happiness, including enlightenment.

Sentient beings are most precious, most kind, most dear, your wish-fulfilling ones. Even Buddha, Dharma, Sangha come from them. By relying on them you become free from the lower realms, free from samsara, free from lower nirvana and you achieve the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations. Even the Buddha comes from the sentient beings. Not only that, even Buddha, Dharma, Sangha—who you take refuge in all the time in order to be free from the lower realms, to be free from samsara, to be free from lower nirvana and in order to achieve buddhahood—even Buddha, Dharma, Sangha come from every single sentient being.

Again, sentient beings have been most precious, unbelievably kind, because they have been your mother numberless times. First your mother gave you a human body with which you can practice Dharma numberless times; second, she has been kind by protecting your life from hundreds of dangers every day; third, she bore many unbelievable hardships by being your mother; and fourth, she gave you education. Like that, she has been kind from beginningless rebirth.

Therefore think that you are reading these sutras for the sentient beings and in particular for those in this world. In particular for those who have died by war, all kinds, and for those who have died due to the elements, due to earthquakes and so forth. You can dedicate for those who have suffered a lot, for example, the many refugees who escaped only to get drowned in the ocean. I am just giving you an idea, some examples.

The Golden Light Sutra practice helps so much for peace in the world and also you are taken care of; there’s no returning to the lower realms, you always go toward enlightenment and everything that has to happen, happens for you by the way.

In particular motivate for anyone who needs the Golden Light Sutra or the Arya Sanghata Sutra. Think, “Anyone who needs this, I am reading it for them, in order to benefit them, in order to solve their problems and eventually bring them to enlightenment.”

These two sutras are very good for world peace and you collect so much merit. Amazing, amazing, amazing. You need that for quick enlightenment and to be able to benefit sentient beings, to free them from samsara and bring them to buddhahood.

Do these two sutra recitations until you die. That is fantastic.

This makes your life most meaningful and most beneficial for all sentient beings, for every creature—every maggot, every mosquito, every hell being, hungry ghost, animal, human being, sura, asura and intermediate state being. There are numberless sentient beings, not only in this world, so think you are doing this for all of them to achieve enlightenment, not just for yourself. That includes your family as well as your enemies, strangers and friends. If you have enemies it’s good to tell them, “I am doing this for you to be free from the oceans of samsaric suffering and to bring you to buddhahood, as quickly as possible.”

2. Vajrasattva mantras: 300,000

3. Water bowl offerings: 500,000

You can do the water bowl offerings together in a group, like Kopan nunnery, which does this each year. Many people come and they all offer together, so for one thousand water bowls, even though each person doesn’t offer one thousand, as a group, you can count the number of bowls that the whole group has made. In this way you can count all of them, even though you only did some part. In this way you can finish quickly. This happens each year at Kopan nunnery. If that’s not possible, you can arrange to do this at a center, or maybe there is a center near you which is arranging this kind of retreat. You can also do it yourself at your home, but it just takes longer.

4. lamrim meditation

The main lamrim for you is Manjushri’s Words [The Sacred Words of Manjushri, Tib: Jam päl zhal lung.] This is not yet published in English, but when you see it in future, then you can get it. That is the main lamrim for you to study. When Manjushri’s Words is translated, read it twice from beginning to end.

In the meantime, you can study Lama Tsongkhapa’s Middle Lamrim four times from beginning to end. Anything you don’t understand well you can write down and then ask a geshe or very good Western teachers who have studied the lamrim well.

When you read these texts mindfully, it becomes meditation. Each subject that you finish, your mind is transformed into that, so then hold the mind in that for a little while. That is fixed meditation and before that is analytical meditation. Both are very helpful.

To gain effortful lamrim experience, meditate according to the lamrim outline. Go through the cycle of meditations twice, spending the specified number of months on each subject, and then do effortless meditation.

Highest Yoga Tantra practice

Your deity is ... or .... Whichever you feel closest to is your main deity, but you can take both of these initiations when the opportunity comes. Later, after studying the lamrim you can do the long retreat and also the short retreat, the enabling retreat. You can even do the retreat a few times; that is an extremely powerful way to pacify obstacles and for success.

The reason for taking Highest Yoga Tantra initiations and doing the practice is to achieve enlightenment in this life. That means to free the sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering quickly and bring them to enlightenment quickly. Therefore, you need to achieve buddhahood in this lifetime, quickly, in one brief lifetime of degenerate time.

It may be difficult to find your son. 

You need to recite the Golden Light Sutra three times. This will help you in general, to purify negative karma created since beginningless rebirths, to accumulate extensive merit and to actualize the path to enlightenment, so it will be good for you. Also, by reciting the sutra you may come to know the story of what happened.

The Nechung Protector puja also needs to be done. Ask the Kopan lama gyupas to do this.

Rinpoche gave this advice during the transmission of Chapter 11:

If you have any problems or danger in your life, even just hearing or listening to the name of the Golden Light Sutra can give protection and pacify those problems. I want to tell you a story about one time when I was in Malaysia at the invitation of a rich family. I was eating lunch and just as I put the first spoonful of rice in my mouth I got a toothache. So I thought of the Golden Light Sutra and how remembering it was supposed to stop the pain. I didn’t think very strongly about the Golden Light Sutra and I didn’t take very strong refuge in it, I just thought about it in passing and the pain went away.

So I would suggest that if you have any kind of health problems such as cancer and especially diseases that cannot be cured by medicine, like black magic or spirit harm, or sicknesses that doctors cannot do anything about, one very good solution is to read the Golden Light Sutra. Especially for world peace, it is unbelievably powerful to read this sutra in countries where there is a lot of fighting and killing.

Rinpoche gave this advice after the transmission of Chapter 16:

I was thinking that generally it would be very helpful if there is a monastery, nunnery, or even a lay center, organization or group of people that could read the Golden Light Sutra every day. Then people from different places all over the world who are sick, or could not find a job for years, or have any other kind of problem, those unbelievable problems that you don’t normally hear about, could write in and request the group to dedicate their reading of the Golden Light Sutra for them. Those people can dedicate their recitation of the Golden Light Sutra for people all over the world who need help, as well as for the six realms’ sentient beings to be freed from the oceans of samsaric suffering and brought to enlightenment. 

Yes, you should believe all of what it says, all the benefits listed. You should believe everything it says there, just as it is stated. It’s all true. You should definitely believe what it says in the sutra. There is no need to interpret.

Those things, the incredible benefits, like never again taking lower rebirth and so forth, happen because of the purification. Just hearing the words of the sutra purifies so much negative karma.

You see, that is the Buddha’s skillful means; that is Shakyamuni Buddha’s incredibly skillful means. When sentient beings hear that sutra, it purifies their mind-streams. It’s like mantra, which has power because Buddha blesses it. A mantra is powerful because Buddha makes it powerful. This [ability] is one of Buddha’s ten powers, you see.

Once, I was reading the Sutra of Golden Light, and it talks all about the benefits; it goes on and on, talking about so many benefits. When I came to the end, I thought, “But what’s the actual sutra? Where’s the actual sutra?” But, it’s all the sutra. There’s no part that is it and the others are not.

The more you believe in the benefits, the better the effect the sutra has and the more benefits you will receive from it. So you should believe all of it. If you don’t believe what it says about receiving the benefits—if you look for some reason why it’s not true —then everywhere you look, you will find reasons not to believe.

Then you won’t believe anything anymore. Everywhere you look in Buddha’s teachings, you will have doubts and you won’t believe anything. Then you create the heavy negative karma of saying the Buddha’s teachings are not true, or that this is not actually the Buddha’s teaching. That becomes the cause for very much suffering, like they create in Hollywood—huge buildings burning and crashing down, people jumping and flying here and there, big disasters. [Rinpoche laughs] So, you should believe what the Sutra of Golden Light says.

But that doesn’t mean other sutras or Buddhist teachings are not interpretive. Some others need to be interpreted. You can’t believe everything they say.

In the Sutra of Golden Light, Buddha Shakyamuni lists the benefits of this sublime sutra. He says:

Those who hear this sutra,
Those who cause others to hear it,
Those who rejoice upon hearing it
And make offerings to it,
For tens of millions of eons
Shall be venerated by gods and nagas,
Humans and kinnaras,
Asuras and yakshas.

I urge you to recite the Sutra of Golden Light for these reasons:

The holy Sutra of Golden Light is the king of the sutras. It is extremely powerful and fulfills all one's wishes, as well as bringing peace and happiness for all sentient beings, up to enlightenment. It is also extremely powerful for world peace, for your own protection, and for the protection of the country and the world. Also, it has great healing power for people in the country. Anyone can read this text, Buddhists and non-Buddhists, who desire world peace.

This also protects individuals and the country from what are labeled natural disasters of the wind element, fire element, earth element, and water element, such as earthquakes, floods, cyclones, fires, tornadoes, etc. They are not natural because they come from causes and conditions that make dangers happen. They come from people’s past inner negative thoughts and actions, and from external conditions.

The benefits of reading this sutra are immeasurable. Reciting just a few lines of the Sutra of Golden Light creates more merit than making immeasurable offerings to the Buddha. Reciting this Sutra directs one's life towards enlightenment. There is so much merit. One's life becomes so easy—whatever one wishes for one receives. There is unbelievable purification. One liberates numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and brings them to enlightenment. ¹

In the Sutra of Golden Light, the Tathagata says:

This King of Glorious Sutras
Fully destroys external enemies,
Turns back legions of foreign armies,
Removes the fear of the terrified and poor,
And causes supreme virtue.

It also has the following benefits:

The protectors, the guardians, will definitely provide protection. Whenever they are needed, they will arrive. Acts of terrorism will be averted. Acts of violence will stop. Natural catastrophes will be avoided. Crops will be successful. The environment will be clean. People will be safe. If there is war, it will end and there will be peace.

If you recite the Sutra of Golden Light, you will have good health, energy and power. All material needs will be satisfied. One will be listened to and respected by others. Whenever a question arises, the guru will answer. One will purify eons of negative karma, meet perfect teachers, develop realizations and definitely benefit others.

The Sutra of Golden Light is the car that will take you to enlightenment.

Notes

¹ For more information about the benefits of the sutra, please see the Sutra of Golden Light.