Wind Imbalance / Lung

Dear one,
I checked for a long time and this is my advice:

1) It comes out very good for you to read Amy Cayton’s book on lung (the book, Balanced Mind, Balanced Body, is for sale at the FPMT Store). It has different methods that people have used. Try these and see if some of these methods work for you.

2) Recite the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names. If it is hard for you to prostrate, then you can put your palms together in the mudra of prostration. Think that you are prostrating to not only the Thirty-five Buddhas but numberless Buddhas. Think nectar is flowing from the Thirty-five Buddhas, purifying all your negative karma, and chant the names. If you can, chant each name at least 21 times each day. Think that the nectar is purifying the four things (sickness, spirit harm, negative karma and defilements).

3) You need to either take Most Secret Hayagriva initiation or the Most Secret Hayagriva torma initiation. If you feel a connection with a lama who comes who can give this to you, you can take it. Otherwise, if you are going to India or Nepal over Losar maybe I can do it for you then.

4) Read the Diamond Cutter Sutra. This comes out very beneficial.

With much love and prayers...

My very dear one,
I hope you are better. Please use the experience to achieve enlightenment quickly by using it to develop bodhicitta and compassion for other mother sentient beings and, as you have been doing, by practicing tonglen. Sometimes you can think, "This is the guru-buddha’s blessing to purify me." Sometimes use it to meditate on emptiness.

With much love and prayers...

My dear venerable holy one, the only one in the world,
Great to hear from you after such a long time, that you are existing in human form in this world and being a great monk. Great! Great! Your body is so precious being a monk. It is like a relic. You are as holy as the number of vows in which you are living.

I understand about the lung, which comes up when one is bored and tired of doing prayers. When one sees the prayer book, lung comes. Things that are difficult and things that we don’t like bring lung. I don’t think that the things we really enjoy bring lung. Do you agree? Sometimes when you put a lot of energy into something, suddenly the energy changes and then you change, you give up. For example, there was a monk who worked really hard for a very long time with computers, even through the night, and then it suddenly changed, and he couldn’t do that work any more. The energy just changed.

So, in this case, it’s something that you get bored with and don’t like, and this will give you lung. Psychologically, the antidote is to accept it. Whenever you encounter problems, rather than being unhappy and suffering, accept it as a result of past karma, then it becomes no longer a problem, or much less. Especially, think of the benefits of the problem. The basis for accepting the problem is thinking of its benefits. By experiencing it, it enables you to finish past negative karma. Kadampa Geshe Kharag Gomchung said even a small suffering in the present finishes very heavy past negative karmas, which make us be reborn in the lower realms, hell realms, and experience suffering for many eons. Then, you will have a happy life in the future.

Therefore, one should meditate, rejoicing in having suffering and problems. Then, of course, as you know from thought transformation practices, use your problem to practice bodhicitta, for taking and giving practice—taking all sentient beings’ suffering in the form of pollution through the nostrils, into the heart, destroying the ego, the self-cherishing thought, completely, so there’s nothing left. Meditate on the “I” to be refuted, the object of ignorance. Do more taking. Do this a few times. Then, at other times, think: “I’m experiencing this for all sentient beings.” Whenever lung comes, think like that. Whenever you are able to think like that, you collect so much merit and the body becomes like a wish-granting jewel. With this body, with each taking and giving, when you experience suffering for others, many eons of negative karma are purified. And each time you become closer to enlightenment. Of course, this is the best practice, as you know.

Other suggestions of very mundane methods: it would be good to use the lung incense made by the Tibetan medical centers and doctors. Also, apply tiger balm to the body. Also, you can use the Tibetan medicine, Akara-soga 35 (for life wind sicknesses).

It would be very good for you to stay in the monastery. You could stay for eons!

With love and prayers...

My very dear one,
It is important for you to sleep while consulting with people, like I do. Just sleep during the time people are there, wake up every so often to smile at them, and allow them to think of different stories in their mind while they are waiting and you are sleeping.

According to my observations, these practices would be best for you at this time. On one’s crown, after doing the four initiations, this could be during Lama Chöpa, visualize the guru on your crown and nectar flowing from the guru’s heart into your body, speech, and mind, purifying the four things (illness, spirit harm, negative karma, and obscurations, especially lung energy), then recite the guru's mantra, however many you can.

This method can also be used for any heavy sickness. Then, make a strong request, with total reliance on the guru, for all this negative karma to be purified completely. Do the visualization and strong request for purification before absorbing the guru into your heart, when the guru is still on the crown of the head.

I will check if there is anything else you can do, but maybe by the time I find something else you will be better.

With much love and prayers...

Rinpoche gave the following additional advice later.

My very dear one,
I heard you had great success in Taiwan, that is really great. That means the FPMT is progressing, thank you very much for that!

We just came back from Wisconsin after offering a long-life puja to Geshe Sopa Rinpoche, who is eighty years old, and I was able to attend the last week, which was a great opportunity to receive the oceans of wisdom. I wasn’t able to go last year and part of this year to the summer teachings because there was too much work with the Maitreya project.

I am not sure whether you have more lung or I have more lung. Maybe we can exchange the lungs and see whose is weaker and whose is more violent. Maybe we can open a shop to sell lung to people who don’t have lung, whose lives are boring. We can give it to them and Tony can run the shop because he doesn’t have lung.

Besides the previous advice, here are two particular meditations for lung and these would be very beneficial for you to do. When you have strong lung, visualize an iron, nine-pronged vajra standing up, at your heart, inside your body, blazing and red hot with fire. Concentrate one-pointedly on the vajra. This is the main practice.

You can also try the following method and see which one is better. When heart wind (lung) rises, think that your heart is split into eight or sixteen pieces, like cutting a tomato in many pieces. All the pus and blood comes out.

Practice these and let me know which one is more beneficial.

With much love and prayers...