Transforming Problems

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter.  

Bodhgaya is one of the hottest places, however, I am sure there are places in India and in other parts of the world that are much hotter. Anyway, your experience of being there during the hot time purifies your negative karma so that you can help other sentient beings.

If you have the motivation to benefit others with a good heart, then it becomes Dharma and it purifies all the heavy negative karma collected from beginningless rebirths, especially the karma to be born in the hot hells. This karma gets purified when you experience being very hot or you have any difficulties in your life. All that heavy negative karma to be born in the hell realms for so many numberless eons gets purified.

Every time you are having difficulties, first you must think of this. If the difficulties are experienced with a good heart, that is the best. If they are experienced with bodhicitta—in order to achieve enlightenment for all sentient beings, to free them from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment—in this way all those experiences, all the difficulties of being hot, become the cause for you to become enlightened for all sentient beings. In this way the difficulties become the cause of freeing all the sentient beings from suffering.

There are numberless sentient beings in each realm. You know you are there to experience the difficulties of being hot, but the goal is to be free from samsara yourself, so then you can free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering. That is amazing, for instance if you think of the lower realm sufferings—of the eight hot hell beings, the eight cold hell beings, the six neighboring hell beings, the ordinary hell beings, the hungry ghosts, the animals—wow, wow, wow, they are numberless, numberless. You can’t imagine.

When you experience this heat, it is to free every single one of them from samsara. It is not only to free yourself from samsara, but to free numberless beings from samsara and bring them to enlightenment. With bodhicitta, whatever you feel—heat or discomfort—is the cause of happiness for numberless sentient beings; for them to achieve enlightenment.

Also you can do tonglen practice. [Read more about tonglen here]

The great yogi Choje Gotsangpa said:

By my experiencing this heat,
May all sentient beings be free immediately
From disease, spirit harm, negative karma and defilements.
And may they achieve buddhahood, the total cessation of obscurations and completion of realizations.

Here I am using the quote to relate to heat, but it can be in relation to any suffering or problem, for example, cancer or another sickness, relationship problems (for married people), etc.

You can recite a mala or more of this verse in the same way that you recite OM MANI PADME HUM. Pray from the heart like this and dedicate for sentient beings.

By experiencing the heat for sentient beings, it becomes most useful and beneficial for sentient beings, for them to be free from samsara and achieve enlightenment. As I mentioned before, in this way any problem can be made most beneficial—for oneself to achieve enlightenment quickly and for all sentient beings.

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
You are the luckiest person. Every day you collect so much merit, every moment, by thinking of me, because we have a Dharma connection, so you collect the highest merit and the most powerful purification, you purify obscurations and negative karma from beginningless rebirths and this is the quickest way to achieve enlightenment. So please enjoy your life.

In regards to what you are experiencing right now, recite malas of this [prayer below], by dedicating your life to the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, suras, asuras and intermediate state beings. Dedicate your life to them, give your life to them, to free them from suffering and for them to achieve all the happiness up to enlightenment, by thinking:

By me experiencing this sickness, may all my mother sentient beings be free from all the sickness, spirit harm, negative karma and defilements, and immediately achieve buddhahood, the peerless happiness.

Recite this like a mantra.

Also you are experiencing this, because—as we made prayers so many times, like when we recite Lama Chöpa—we recite [the verse] to receive the suffering of all sentient beings, particularly the obstacles, so now you are receiving it, which is a sign of great success. Now it has manifested as this sickness, and now you are experiencing this for all sentient beings.

The prayer is from the great yogi Choje Gotsangpa, this is the way he practiced Dharma, the essence of his Dharma practice, not to have pleasure, comfort. His preference was the suffering, the hardships, and he almost died four times making charity to lice and to lice eggs. They attacked him, and he made charity and almost died four times. He underwent unbelievable hardships.

Compared to that, myself practicing Dharma is just between the lips. His way of practicing was not to have a monastery or organization, because it creates attachment, so he never had that. That was his own particular view, however, later he gave many teachings. He underwent unbelievable hardships to practice Dharma, and this is what he advised whenever he met problems; he saw them as very positive and he recited:

Whatever experience of problems or suffering I have, may it purify every sentient being—the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, sura, asura and intermediate state beings—so everyone.

That means every single different-sized fish, those that are so tiny and those the size of a mountain, all sizes in the water; every single mosquito in the different universes; every single ant in the different universes; every single slug and every single worm, like the fishing bait worms that are used to catch fish.

As you know, there is the story of Kadampa Geshe Gönpawa, Lama Atisha’s disciple, who was always busy only meditating. Lama Atisha’s other disciple Gyalwa Dromtonpa was always very busy translating for Lama Atisha and then Amé, who was the cook for Lama Atisha, was always busy cooking. So Geshe Gönpawa thought, “I am the only one meditating, the only one who has time, the others are very busy, so I must have the highest realizations.”

Lama Atisha knew he was thinking this with his clairvoyance, so he called the three together and had them sit in front of him and he checked who had the highest realizations. Dromtonpa had higher realizations than Gönpawa, even though he was always busy translating, but it was the cook [Amé] who had the highest realizations, even though he was always so busy cooking. That’s what Lama Atisha said.

Not that I have realizations, but because we have a Dharma connection, your helping me as cook; you were also director at the center and so forth, then, as you remember, I told you to come to help with cooking.

So unbelievable negative karma and obscurations collected from beginningless rebirths are purified. Unbelievably heavy negative karma to be reborn in the lower realms and suffer, like in hell, for eons and eons, so this gets purified; this is great purification. Therefore when some form of sickness manifests in this life, and even doctors don’t know what it is, this causes the unbelievably heavy negative karma collected in the past, that would have caused you to be reborn in the lower realms for eons and eons, to finish. So there is great, great, unbelievable benefit.

It is a good thing, then [you] will be like the sun shining. There is one sun shining in the world not only for all the people, but even for all the animals and insects to enjoy, so like that. So in the future [you will be] like that; in the future [you will] go to enlightenment, buddhahood.

Kadampa Geshe Kharag Gomchung said:

This present small suffering I am experiencing finishes my past negative karma and then there will be happiness in future lives. Therefore, rejoice in this suffering.

He is advising to think of the advantages of the suffering that we feel, such as sickness. So this is an unbelievable, unbelievable profit, an unbelievable quality. So rejoice!

Thank you very much. A billion, zillion, trillion thanks.

With much love and prayers ...

My most kind, most precious, most dear, wish-fulfilling one,
How are you? How is Bodhgaya? You have to experience the heat of Bodhgaya, so that purifies your past negative karma. You are practicing Dharma, working for other sentient beings, in order to bring them temporary happiness and, while there is samsara, so they will have a higher rebirth and eventually become free from the oceans of samsaric suffering and attain enlightenment.

You are practicing Dharma and working very hard for sentient beings, therefore experiencing the hot [weather] helps to purify your past negative karma collected from beginningless rebirths; the negative karma that would otherwise be the cause of rebirth in the hot hells.

The Kadampa Geshe Kharag Gomchung advised:

Experiencing even this small suffering now
Finishes past negative karma and there will be happiness in the future.
Therefore, rejoice in the suffering.

Please give my regards to your parents.

With much love and prayers...  

Practice Advice

Burning Offering to Dorje Khadro: Try to do what you can. There is no particular number; do this practice when you have time.

Water Bowl Offerings: Ten x 100,000 [one million]: This came out as your main preliminary practice. You can use the water bowls upstairs; there are quite a few. There is a Tibetan boy doing water bowls around the Nagarjuna [statue], and if he is not doing that then you can do, as part of your preliminary practice. You can also do this with other students, by offering all the water bowls, including what the others do. You don’t have to worry; you can do them slowly, slowly. Don’t worry about how long it takes to finish them.

Sutra of Golden Light: Read part of this sutra every day. You don’t have to finish the text in one day, but if you do, that is good. Whatever is not finished you can do the next day. This is the plan for your whole life.

Tsa tsas: 11,000. Divide between the three deities, Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, Vajrayogini and Vajrapani. Contact a place where we have a tsa tsa factory to get the mold and learn how to make them. It would be very good to have a tsa tsa factory, to have a copy of all the molds. That would be so good, so beneficial for many people,

Lamrim Study and Practice

Your main lamrim text is Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. Read this five times from beginning to end. Reading the text through becomes study if you read slowly and think about it.

• Guru devotion : two months
• The graduated path of the lower capable being: one month
• The graduated path of the intermediate capable being: two months
• The graduated path of the highest capable being:
  
  • Bodhicitta: one month
  • Emptiness: one month

Complete this cycle three times, meditating on each topic for the number of months indicated above.

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

I checked and you need to wear some protection amulets: Liberating from Bondage protection, White Umbrella Deity protection and a ru. You need to wear these protections, but don’t get them wet, so take them off when you have a shower. At night, if there is a chance you will roll over and sleep on them, then take them off and keep them close by, for example, on your bedside table, and then put them on again in the morning.

The ru you should wear all the time. It is against black magic and by wearing it when other people are doing black magic on you it becomes powerless. Of course, black magic comes from our selfish mind and ignorance.

It is said by Kadampa Geshe Choje:

Put all the blame to one.

This means the self-cherishing thought, because from that all the actions become negative karma. That is where all the sufferings come from; also it comes from ignorance, so it totally comes from your mind. This is where the black magic came from.

Then toward sentient beings meditate on their kindness.

Instead worldly people think that black magic and so forth came from outside, came from others. In reality, all the past happiness, present and future happiness and enlightenment comes from others, whereas black magic and all the suffering comes from our own mind, the selfish mind and ignorance, the root of samsara. This means holding the I as real while it is not, while it exists in mere name. It’s totally empty from its own side.

Thank you very much.

We should rejoice in the sufferings, the problems, because when we have problems it causes us to lose arrogance and pride, and it helps us to generate compassion for others, who are suffering in samsara like us or even more than ourselves. Then that helps us to actualize bodhicitta and it helps us to achieve enlightenment, it helps us to free the sentient beings from the oceans of samsara and sufferings and to bring them to peerless happiness.

Having problems helps us to be mindful, to not take [anything] for granted, to be mindful of negative karma, from where suffering comes, and of good karma, from where happiness comes. So we can renounce the negative karma and create good karma. We become more mindful. It helps us to achieve more happiness and to renounce suffering and the mind is happy to practice Dharma, to collect merit, to do positive actions. We are very happy. It helps to actualize all the realizations of lamrim up to enlightenment, the three principal aspects of the path, the general and in particular the two stages of tantra.

Kadampa Geshe Kharag Gomchung said:

The present suffering causes past negative karmas to finish and there will be happiness in the future. Therefore, rejoice that we are experiencing these sufferings.

The great yogi Choje Götsangpa said:

By my experiencing these problems, may all sentient beings be free from sicknesses, spirit harm, negative karma and defilements, and may they achieve buddhahood, the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations.

Think this, just as the Tibetan people recite OM MANI PADME HUM all the time—walking, shopping, being in the shop to buy things—so all the time they are reciting OM MANI PADME HUM. Like this, you can recite this verse [by Choje Götsangpa] on and on, while you are walking, while you are inside your room or outside, or going to work.

Each time you do that, you collect the highest merit, by taking first the sickness of all sentient beings and then the spirit harm, thirdly the negative karma and finally the obscurations. Therefore four times you collect the highest merit and the greatest purification of negative karmas collected from beginningless rebirth, which causes you to achieve realizations on the path the quickest and causes you to achieve enlightenment the quickest. That is the best life, the most happy life, a meaningful life.

Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers ...

My dear one, 
Now I hope you got better. I did some prayers. I will read the prayer for eliminating pain one time, then if your pain continues the Kopan umdze [chant master] should read the prayer a few times for you. You have to be there when he reads it.

As it is said in the teachings, first think that every happiness—day-to-day happiness; future life happiness (deva and human rebirth); nirvana, the blissful state of peace for oneself which is experienced forever; and even the total cessation of the obscurations and completion of realizations, the peerless happiness—comes from the mind.

All the happiness that we experience came from our mind, and all the suffering—hell, hungry ghost, animal, human being—came from our mind. That’s because in the past we created nonvirtue as well as harming others. All our suffering came from that and all our happiness came from virtue. So our mind is the basic creator, not God, not Buddha, Dharma, Sangha.

That’s why the Buddha said:

Do not commit any unwholesome action,
Engage in perfect wholesome action,
Subdue one’s own mind:
This is the teaching of the Buddha.

The basic thing is “Subdue one’s own mind: This is the teaching of the Buddha.” From that comes every happiness—the happiness of today and of the next life, freedom from samsara and the peerless happiness of enlightenment. Everything comes from our mind. Therefore, it’s totally up to us. We always have to use our mind in a way that is positive because it’s the cause of all our happiness. Not in a negative way, which is the cause of all our suffering. We don’t like suffering, so we have to abandon that mind. Subduing the mind, that is what is called Dharma practice. What I’ve explained is not only what the Buddha said; if we check, it is according to our own experience.

It is said in the teachings:

Even if the environment and beings are filled with the fruits of negativity,
And unwished for sufferings pour down like rain,
I seek your blessings to take these miserable conditions as a path
By seeing them as causes to exhaust the results of my negative karma.
- [Lama Chöpa, v. 96]

As mentioned in the Lama Chöpa or Guru Puja, composed by the enlightened lama Panchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen, we have to think like this about whatever problem we are experiencing. We have to think it’s good because we are finishing the heavy negative karma collected in the past from beginningless rebirths by experiencing it now in this life as some problem. This is instead of experiencing the result of the heavy negative karma collected in the past as suffering in the hell realms and so forth, even for eons. Experiencing the problem in this life means that due to Dharma practice we don’t have to experience all that long-term unimaginable heavy suffering of the lower realms. Just by experiencing some problem in this life, all that heavy negative karma is experienced in the form of this problem.

Not only that, in the future there will be great happiness like the sun shining. There will be greater and greater happiness, like the sun shining, then buddhahood, the total cessation of the obscurations and completion of the realizations. When the sun shines, all the people and animals in the world enjoy it. There will be incredible happiness for us up to enlightenment, like the sun shining.

Kadampa Geshe Khamlungpa said:

Even experiencing the present little suffering
Finishes our past negative karmas.
And in the future there will be happiness.
Therefore, rejoice in the suffering.

It very much depends on what we think. If we look at the quality of the situation then we rejoice. If we look at it as bad, it turns out to be a problem. So that result is not physically healthy and not healthy for the mind. It makes us sick physically and mentally.

Utilize the problem on the path to enlightenment. The best way to do this is with tonglen. Use the problem, whatever it is, to practice bodhicitta, then it gets used on the path to enlightenment, especially by doing tonglen. You should learn tonglen and do tonglen. If you don’t know how to do it, I must explain it to you.

Thank you very much. This is my advice to you, my advice for your life. This is better than going to hundreds of doctors in Singapore, including Western psychologists.

Please enjoy this.

With love and prayer ...

Sorry to add a little more. The thought transformation practice is not just to solve our problems. When we experience a problem and utilize it on the path to enlightenment, it is most beneficial to experience it, because it leads to all happiness and even enlightenment. That’s the real meaning of thought transformation.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
I heard about your difficulties. As you know, all these difficulties do not exist from their own side, even though they appear like that to our hallucinated mind. The difficulty appears to exist from its own side, to exist by itself. It appears real, using ordinary language.

Basically, what you believe is difficult is just your mind thinking, your mind merely labelling, “This is difficult.” Your mind is merely labelling that it is difficult and that’s how it came into existence. When the difficulty appeared to you, even though it is merely imputed, it appears totally opposite, as though it never came from the mind and it was never merely labeled by the mind. That is totally a hallucination.

For example, we are living our whole life in a hallucination, so like that, everything—including the I, form, sounds, smell, tangible objects; everything that appears to our senses, to our hallucinated mind—appears as real, as if something is existing from there. However, it doesn’t appear real unless our mind merely imputes it first. Everything that appears real is not true, it is a total hallucination. It is a totally hallucinated real I, a totally hallucinated real action and a totally hallucinated real object.

While everything—I, action, object—is totally empty of existing from its own side, it exists in mere name. Everything—I, action, object—exists in mere name; it is merely labeled by the valid mind, on the valid base.

What we think is difficult, in a complicated way, is all made up by our own concepts, and is to do with our own concepts.

Let me say something, what the great bodhisattva Shantideva has advised:

Whatever befalls me,
I shall not disturb my mental joy;
For having been made unhappy, I shall not accomplish what I wish,
And my virtues will decline.
  - [Bodhicaryavatara, Ch. 6, v. 9]

There are so many problems in the West; also in the East, but especially in the West. If there is a way for the problem to be fixed or mended, what is there to dislike about it? If there is a method then do it, and if there is no method and no way to fix it, then why dislike it? If there is a way to fix the problem, then do it, and if there isn’t, then no need to be worried. It just makes us mentally sick and it also causes physical sickness. As it increases more, it brings more problems.

Why be unhappy about something
If it can be remedied?
And what is the use of being unhappy about something
If it cannot be remedied?
  - [Bodhicaryavatara, Ch. 6, v. 10]

Please think about this. It is what Shantideva advised and this is my advice to you. When you think this way, it will bring happiness to your life.

Generally, if our motivation is the self-cherishing thought, then of course, as it is mentioned by Shantideva in the Bodhicaryavatara:

If I do not actually exchange my happiness
For the sufferings of others,
I shall not attain the state of buddhahood
And even in cyclic existence shall have no joy.
  - [Bodhicaryavatara, Ch. 8, v. 131]

Enlightenment is the complete cessation of all the obscurations and total completion of all the realizations, however, if our motivation is the self-cherishing thought we cannot achieve this for sentient beings. Even while we are in samsara there is no happiness or success, leave aside the happiness and success beyond this life. Even in this life, the works of this life cannot succeed. All our unhappiness and obstacles come from the self-cherishing thought, and by cherishing our mothers, this leads to happiness and is the door to receiving infinite qualities.

Should even all the beings of the three realms without exception
Become angry at me, humiliate, criticize, threaten, or even kill me,
I seek your blessings not to be agitated, but to complete the perfection of patience
That works for their benefit in response to their harm.
  - [Guru Puja, v. 103]

Please think more about this every day or quite often. Don’t read this advice I am giving you just one time and then throw it away. Don’t read it very fast and then throw it away in the garbage.

Here is a little bit of commentary.

Cherish even one mother sentient being, who has been our own mother and has been kind, giving birth to us, especially a human rebirth, so that we can practice Dharma. She has been kind from beginningless rebirth and has protected our life from hundreds of dangers every day. She took care of us while we were in the womb for nine months and even after that she took care of us for a long time. This has been happening from beginningless rebirths, and our mother has borne hardship for us many times, every day, numberless times from beginningless rebirths. She also gave us education numberless times from beginningless rebirths.

Just one clear example, if she had an abortion, we could be a maggot in cow dung or maybe a bird would be eating us by now. Half our body would be outside moving around and the other half would be inside the bird’s beak, things like that. Or our whole body could be covered by ants and we would have no way to escape being eaten by ants, let alone meeting Dharma and being able to study, leaving that aside.

Now you can see very clearly the kindness of the mother. Therefore the thought of cherishing even one sentient being and bringing that being happiness is the door or the gateway for a number of qualities.

New bodhisattvas who actualize the five paths—the path of merit, the path of preparation, the right-seeing path, the path of meditation and the path of no more learning—arya bodhisattvas and even new bodhisattvas have unbelievable qualities that we don’t have. New bodhisattvas have unbelievable, unbelievable qualities.

Those bodhisattvas who have achieved the third or fourth bhumi and so forth, and who have achieved the exalted path, have a spiritual body. This means they don’t have the sufferings of old age, sickness, rebirth and death. Those who have achieved the eighth, ninth and tenth bhumis can manifest as oceans, as water, as mountains, as bridges or anything that benefits sentient beings.

First bhumi bodhisattvas can go to hundreds of different pure lands through their psychic power and receive teachings. They can do prostrations with hundreds of different manifestations and they can give different teachings to sentient beings, so they can do eleven different activities one hundred times. It is unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable! The second bhumi bodhisattvas can increase their holy activities one thousand times, so like that it goes on and on. The eighth, ninth and tenth bhumi bodhisattvas can manifest a billion, zillion, trillion times and make prostrations, do meditations and give teachings.

To our very obscured limited mind, there is no way to understand their qualities. Also, their pores are filled with pure land worlds. This is beyond our concepts, there’s no way to understand. It is unbelievable, unbelievable, how they can benefit sentient beings, like the sky, so much.

These are with effort but the Buddha, of course, makes no effort; everything is done without resistance. The Buddha can directly can see all phenomena of the past, at the same time the present and at the same time the future. There is no phenomena that the Buddha does not see directly, all at the same time.

The Buddha’s holy mind can function as his holy speech, the Buddha’s holy body can function as his holy speech and so forth. The Buddha has no resistance and is totally free, so wherever his holy mind manifests, his holy body can also manifest.

When our mind is purified of more and more obscurations we can see numberless buddhas in nirmanakaya aspect, then in sambhogakaya aspect, then oneness with all the buddhas, when we have achieved dharmakaya and have totally ceased all the obscurations. Anyway the Buddha has infinite qualities.

The Buddha’s holy body, speech and mind all come from bodhicitta, so we can say that all the happiness of sentient beings comes from bodhicitta, from cherishing others, from letting go of the I and cherishing others. Every single happiness that we have experienced in the past from beginningless rebirths until now and what will be experienced in the future; all the happiness of this life and all the happiness of future lives, liberation from samsara and ultimate happiness, the peerless happiness—the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations—what we experience all comes from and is received from the kindness of numberless sentient beings, numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless suras, numberless asuras and numberless intermediate state beings.

That means every maggot, every mosquito, every bed bug, every flea, every spider, every slug, everything. They are the most kind, most precious, most dear wish-fulfilling ones, our wish-fulfilling ones.

By taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha we can be free from the lower realms, free from samsara, free from the lower nirvana, and we can achieve the peerless happiness, sang gye, the total elimination of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations. All of that comes from every insect and every animal that I mentioned, so it comes from every sentient being.

When our mind’s motivation is cherishing the I, then everything becomes a problem or difficulty. We have so many problems, it’s unbelievable, unbelievable. Even in relationships with our parents, children, wife or husband, not getting along, even one day is difficult. However, when the mind is cherishing others totally, then it brings all the happiness to ourselves and to others.

Please keep this in your heart. This is most important advice, so keep it in your prayer book. It’s not just to read one time quickly and then throw away. Please don’t do that.

Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers ...