Tsa-tsas

My very dear Jean,
Most congratulations on your plan to recite 100 million manis. Other practices are:

1) 30,000 tsa-tsas

Divide the tsa-tsas among the three types of buddhas: Chenrezig, Manjushri and Vajrapani; also Guhyasamaja, Vajrayogini, Kalachakra, Secret Hayagriva, Gyalwa Gyatso and Secret Vajrapani.

The tsa-tsas can be used in different ways. You can give them to people to make stupas, or line them up high in the rooms of your house, with Christmas lights below them as light offerings. There is unbelievable benefit in doing this. There are skies of benefit in making and seeing the tsa-tsas, and we collect unbelievable merit, skies of merit, by making light offerings to them. This is rich in merit.

If there is an empty wall outside or inside your house, fill it up completely with tsa-tsas, as they did at Vajrapani Institute. It’s very beautiful, and people can do prostrations and make offerings to the tsa-tsas. In front of the wall, put a table with water offerings and flower offerings.

You can give the tsa-tsas to people who are making big stupas or statues, for them to put inside. This helps very much. You can also give the tsa-tsas as presents to many people for use on their altars.

In Tibet and Solu Khumbu, people put tsa-tsas inside caves with protection from the rain. They arranged them nicely, not like putting garbage in a can.

You could also make a small stupa and arrange the tsa-tsas nicely inside, or make a structure like a stupa inside your house or in your garden. By going around this, people, animals and insects can purify their negative karma collected from beginningless rebirths and collect skies of merit. Each time they go around, they create the cause of enlightenment.

In your garden or house, in the sitting room or wherever there is space, you should set up a nice table with another smaller table on top and another smaller table on top, so that it goes up. Put many holy objects (statues, stupas, scriptures) on the tables and put tsa-tsas inside. Make the table a little up from the ground. It’s good to fill up the table with many tsa-tsas, nicely arranged, not like putting garbage in a garbage can. This helps to purify the negative karma collected from beginningless rebirths and collects extensive merit. It plants the seed of enlightenment. Just seeing the holy objects collects unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable merits. So, try to have many holy objects set up inside. Not just on the outside, but have many on the inside. On the outside around the stupa you can put many statues, scriptures and tsa-tsas nicely lined up. On the top, put a Buddha statue (Buddha’s holy body), a scripture (Buddha’s holy speech) and a stupa (Buddha’s holy mind).

On the first level there should be offerings of ARGHAM, PADYAM, PUSHPE, DHUPE, ALOKE, GANDHE, NAIVEDYA and SHABTA, as well as flowers.

2)  50,000 guru yoga (Recitation of migtsemas based on Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga)

3)  500,000 water bowl offerings

4)  500,000 Samayavajra

5)  Two nyung näs

6)  Meditation practice:

• Nine months on the lower path
• Nine months on the middle path
• Four months on bodhicitta
• Four months on emptiness

Meditate on guru devotion every day. After that, train the mind in the lamrim meditations one by one until you achieve stable realization.

7) Your deities are Guhyasamaja and Most Secret Hayagriva. You can receive the initiation of both deities and do the retreats. From these two, do Most Secret Hayagriva unless you feel more strongly about practicing Guhyasamaja.

With much love and prayers... 

My very dear James Rinpoche,
I am not calling you Rinpoche with the normal meaning of incarnation. I am calling you Rinpoche because of your precious talents supported by a dedicated mind. So, you can receive the title Rinpoche.

There is one FPMT Dzambhala benefactor whose mother has Alzheimer's disease. She loves her mother very much, as she loves and cares for other sentient beings as well. Because her mother's condition is deteriorating and her health is declining, I suggested it would be good to do something for her before she dies. If she does something now then when she dies it makes it easier, it purifies her mind by creating extensive merit. So, according to my divinations, it came out very good for her to make 16 arhat tsa-tsas and a five-cubit Medicine Buddha statue (which will be made in Delhi). I organized already seven Medicine Buddha statues to be made in Delhi for a Dharma center in Dharamsala, so it is easy for centers to order them. Even though, from my divinations, if they are correct, it doesn't look like she would have a bad rebirth, that she would be born in the lower realms, it came out best to make these statues.

The height of the 16 arhat tsa-tsas should be 17" from the elbow to the tip of the finger, and around the edge should be the eight auspicious signs. They should not be copied from the Chinese dressed ones but wearing Tibetan-style robes. There are some thangkas that have them with the robes on. As you know, each one could sit on a cloud or each one could be in a cave on a rocky mountain. Then, at the very bottom, if you are able to manage, should be the small offering goddesses dancing, like the ones in the Lama Chöpa. You can see the two left and right groups, with different leg positions. That could be nice, or the seven king's reigns. You can make them like the seven Medicine Buddhas you painted, coming out from a deep cave, not flat like you made the first Thousand-arm Chenrezig.

The centers can have the tsa-tsas. Don't rush, plan well before making them. First collect ideas. Make it the best you can so it can be used for many many hundreds of years, the lineage. I did see some books, probably from China, where the arhats have monk's robes on. One place I have seen this is in Norbulingka in Dharamsala, which His Holiness doesn't like, as the 16 arhats are wearing Chinese dress, with long sleeves.

My very dear Laura,
I have sent the picture of the Maitreya statue prototype. The robes and the legs are pppeeerrrrrrfffeeecccttttt. I saw the picture and I really like it; it is very neat. Nothing is clumsy. The hands, etc, are very good, also the face is good. Maybe there is a very, very slight thing to be improved in the smile, very very small. But I need to see it well. Maybe the face needs some very slight changes, but it is generally good. The whole thing is very good. I didn't realize that you were born to make a Maitreya Buddha statue. I wondered if you can do this in this life, then in future lives I can't imagine what you can do. Probably you can make a Maitreya Buddha the size of Mount Meru.

Anyway, you should know that you and James are the source of countless sentient beings’ merit, for example, those who make tsa-tsas and those who make offerings to tsa-tsas and statues. This is your quick way of bringing sentient beings to enlightenment. Even without depending on a positive motivation from the beings, from the side of the power of the objects, beings can achieve enlightenment soon. You make it very easy for beings to create the causes for liberation and enlightenment.

The 500-foot Maitreya statue, the countless beings, so many millions of people, who collect merits, the cause of enlightenment, and all the rest of beings’ happiness come from your statue prototype, which is the copy of the big one. Therefore, you should think this way and rejoice in all those countless sentient beings’ merit and your merit.

With much love and prayer, and hope to see you soon...

Anyway, you should know that you two are the source of numberless sentient beings’ merit. Making tsa-tsas and making offerings to tsa-tsas and statues is your quick way of bringing sentient beings to enlightenment. Even without depending on a positive motivation, from the side of the power of the objects, they can achieve enlightenment soon. You make it very easy to create the causes for liberation and enlightenment for them.

My very dear June and Nick,
Thank you very much for all your efforts in making statues.

What a great thing that you can make so many statues of enlightened beings. Thank you very much. Making statues liberates sentient beings from samsara and from defilements, and brings them to full enlightenment.

When the statue is made, it works for sentient beings by itself, so that sentient beings can achieve liberation from samsara and be brought to full enlightenment.

With much love and prayers...