Your Life Has Been Rich in Merit

My most dear one, who is most precious and kind and wish-fulfilling,
I am in New York now and after a few days I am going to North Carolina for Dharma teachings at a retreat place. I heard Jacie, who served Lama for seven years with much devotion seeing the guru as Buddha, and also her daughter, have come to visit you. I heard from both of them that you have moved to a new place. I hope it can be very comfortable for you.

Your life has been very rich in merit; there has been so much purification of negative karma and obstacles that interfere with achieving enlightenment. You offered your land to Lama when you had the opportunity, when you were healthy and well. That means you offered to Buddha Vajradhara.

From this you collected far greater merit than if you had made offerings to numberless buddhas, Dharma and Sangha. You collected the highest, the greatest amount of merit and you made very strong purification, so you have become closer to enlightenment. This is amazing, amazing, amazing!

At the center you organized courses from time to time, you helped people do retreats and you organized the Vajrasattva retreat. All these things bring great benefit to people and you yourself did so much and purified so much negative karma due to serving Lama.

I remember at Tushita when you were transporting stones for Lama’s house, you were doing it alone, stone by stone. At that time with each step you took, you purified negative karma collected [from beginningless] rebirths, and each step you took brought you closer to enlightenment. With each stone, this brought you closer to enlightenment.

You have also taken precepts, so by keeping the precepts, every hour, every minute and every second you become closer to enlightenment.

It is said in the Kalachakra Tantra:

Even if you make offerings to the Three Rare Sublime Ones and protect millions of creatures, liberating them from being killed for all the three-time eons, still you can’t achieve enlightenment in this life. But if, with devotion, you please the guru, who has oceans of qualities, then all the common and sublime qualities are granted in this life.

There is another quotation from Ocean of Transcendental Wisdom:

There is no comparison between someone who has the good fortune of serving in the activities of the guru and someone who has prostrated for ten million, six hundred thousand eons. To be expert in the activities of the guru is far, far, far, far more meaningful. If you accomplish what the guru ordered with your own material substances and belongings, this will make you free from samsara. All your wishes will succeed and you will get unfathomable merit. You will be free from the breath of samsara, enter into the field of nirmanakaya and go to the great nirvana.

Also, it is mentioned by the great yogi Drogön Tsangpa Gyare:

You must not lose the auspicious connection with the qualified guru. If you break the relationship with others, let it happen. But if you lose the auspiciousness [break the connection or degenerate the samaya] with the qualified guru, then even if all the transmigratory beings become your relatives [or friends], what is the benefit of that?

It is mentioned in the teachings:

Even if you attempt hundreds of efforts in your practice for numberless oceans of eons, still it is very difficult to achieve the unified state of enlightenment. But by depending on the guru’s power, you are granted enlightenment immediately in a brief lifetime of the degenerate time.

My dear one, in reality this has a connection to you. These teachings are connected to you, because what you did brought you closer to enlightenment.

Sakya Pandita, the founder of the Sakya lineage mentioned:

Even if for one thousand eons you practice the paramita of charity—giving your limbs, legs, hands and so forth—and even if these merits are dedicated to sentient beings; with the path of the guru, you are able to collect all this merit in one second.

The path of the guru means making offerings to the guru, serving the guru and so forth. You cannot compare the merit of that with other activities and practices, such as making charity to sentient beings. By making offerings and serving the guru you collect the merit in one second.

You can imagine the merit you have collected over months and years of following the guru. You have so much to rejoice in, skies of merits to rejoice in. You are unbelievably, unbelievably, unbelievably fortunate, so much more fortunate than the normal billionaires. They are like beggars compared to the merit you have. This is what I think, so please rejoice.

Please remember what I have said. You can spend your life in unbelievable happiness, then go to the pure land of Vajrayogini or Tara.

This is what you should think when you die:

Think a beam of light comes from your Lama’s heart. Lama is on your head and the light beam goes to your heart, the size of a mustard seed and light like cotton. From Lama’s heart the red beam goes to your heart and hooks your consciousness and pulls your consciousness to Lama’s heart. Visualize Lama as Vajrayogini. You become one with Lama’s mind—transcendental bliss nondual with emptiness. Then shoot up into the pure land of Vajrayogini, Dagpa Khachö, and visualize yourself in front of Vajrayogini, in the pure land.

That’s all. Thank you very much, see you soon.

With much love and prayers ...