Generate
love and compassion, either using the seven techniques of cause and effect, or
thinking the following:
Love: All sentient beings are deprived of happiness.
They do not know the causes of happiness and, although some of them may know,
they are too lazy to create them. How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings
had happiness and its causes. I am going to cause that to happen.
Compassion:
How much are all sentient beings suffering. They are ignorant of the causes, and
even if they may know them, they are too lazy to abandon them. How wonderful if
all sentient beings were free from suffering and its causes. I am going to cause
that to happen.
I am only one person, just one. Even if I am in the hells there
is no reason to get depressed. Even if I am free from all sufferings there is
no reason to get excited.
All others are numberless and, like me, they want
to be happy and they do not want suffering. How wonderful if I alone experience
the sufferings of all infinite other sentient beings.
With compassion, you
take all the sufferings of human beings and gods and also from all beings in the
lower realms. Breathing in, take the sufferings in through the nose like polluted
smoke - this destroys the self-cherishing thought.
When the self-cherishing
is destroyed, the real "I," the independent, unlabelled, existing-from-its-own-side
"I," which does not exist in reality, is seen to be empty. The "I"
is merely imputed on the aggregates. The appearing "I" is false, but
one believes that it is true and grasps at that. Then one thinks that oneself
is more important than anybody else. So, when the self-cherishing thought is destroyed,
the "I" that appears, unlabelled, concrete, and independent, is also
destroyed. This leaves some empty space in the mind that can be filled with true
happiness and can remove all fears and delusions.
The problem comes when one
grasps at that "I" which is false. When grasping at that "I,"
you say, "I want to be happy" and then you forget others, and you do
not feel that others also want to be happy. You do not want suffering and you
stop feeling for all others who have heavier sufferings.
For example, when
you imagine one million dollars in your hand, you cherish it so much. Then when
you discover that it is just a hallucination, you see that there is nothing to
cherish in your hand. The same happens with the "I," which we grasp
as so precious, but does not exist and is a hallucination.
So the "I"
is empty, it does not exist. It is empty of existence from its own side. It is
like a bubble that bursts or like a piece of wood which you see in the darkness
and you think it is a person. When you switch on the light the person disappears.
The person does not go anywhere, it is simply empty of the person. The same happens
with the "I."
With love - give to others. You give to others your
body transformed into a wish-fulfilling jewel. You also give your possessions,
friends, and relatives to all sentient beings, the hell beings, hungry ghosts,
and animals. You also give all the enjoyments. All places become a pure land:
there are beautiful ponds, flowers, parks, lakes, streams of pure clean water,
trees full of fruits, flowers and leaves, perfumes, scents, beautiful birds making
Dharma sounds, and jewels and treasures everywhere on the ground, and so forth.
All becomes Amitabha Pure Land. All these enjoyments cause the path to be generated
in the mind of all beings and they become Amitabha Buddha.
Each sentient being
receives what he or she wants. For example, you give thousands of different types
of delicious foods, especially to the hungry ghosts. For the hell beings, all
weapons become flowers, and the human beings receive money, doctors, medicines,
and gurus. These enjoyments cause them to generate the path in their minds and
they become Amitabha Buddha.
Then generate the Special Attitude:
"In
reality, they have not become enlightened. Now I have all the opportunities. I
have received a perfect human rebirth. I have found a virtuous guide who can lead
me to enlightenment. I have the Dharma wisdom eye to know what to practice and
what to abandon. I am responsible for freeing them from their suffering and leading
them to enlightenment.
"But now I cannot do anything. I do not know the
minds of sentient beings. I do not know the methods to lead them to enlightenment.
So, I have to become enlightened in order to lead all sentient beings to enlightenment."
Do
this meditation morning, afternoon, and night.
Then train the mind in the following
ways:
* I am experiencing this problem, this sickness, on behalf of others.
(To think in this way is very important.)
* I am experiencing this problem
because I have created the cause. I am finishing the karma that I have created
so I will not experience suffering in the future.
* This experience is helping
me to practice Dharma.
* These are the blessings of the guru, helping me to
purify.
* I am purifying. This is like doing Vajrasattva retreat or hundreds
of thousands of prostrations. Besides that, this is helping me to meditate on
bodhicitta and emptiness. It is like doing the preliminary practices.
* This
practice is done for others, so I accumulate numberless merits because others
are numberless.
* With emptiness and bodhicitta the practice is very powerful.
I accumulate even more merits than doing the preliminary practices because the
practice is done for others.
Remember the stories of the past lives of Shakyamuni
Buddha. For example, when he killed a man who was going to kill five hundred people,
with great compassion he accepted all the suffering that he might have to experience
in the hells. The result was that he shortened his time in samsara by a hundred
thousand eons. Also, in another life, when he was pulling a chariot of fire, he
had the wish to experience that suffering for all others. He sacrificed himself
for others and as a result he took birth in a pure realm.
Also think: "This
problem is the best medicine. This problem, which is used to develop bodhicitta
(by thinking that it is being experienced for others) and emptiness, is the best
medicine." This is because you finish with the sickness and also with its
causes, which are karma and delusions.
The antidote to the self-cherishing
thought and the delusions is the Dharma, because the Dharma is the opposite to
them. Similarly, the problems are the opposite of the self-cherishing mind, so
are like the Dharma. The problem has the same function as the Dharma - it destroys
the self-cherishing and the delusions, which are the source of all our problems
and sufferings.
So, instead of taking the sickness, the cancer, on yourself,
you give it to the self-cherishing thought. This is very important. Doing it like
that, you stop depression arising; you don't allow unhappiness into your mind
and instead you have calm and peace in your mind. The empty space that is left
as the depression disappears starts to be filled with happiness.
Also think:
"This problem is making me develop compassion; thus I can achieve enlightenment
very quickly because I am accumulating infinite merits."
Today many people
are dying, even people without cancer, without AIDS, many very healthy people.
Even without cancer, the time of death can come at any moment. So, it is necessary
to purify and accumulate merits.
Due to this merit may all beings meet a perfect
spiritual guide and be able to fulfill his wishes and in this way accumulate extensive
merit and purify all the negativities and causes of sicknesses without delay.
Tumor
in Spine
A student with a tumor wrote to Rinpoche asking for advice. Her letter
and Rinpoche's response are below.
Dear Lama Zopa Rinpoche,
My name is Julie
Brown. I am 26 years old and I have a tumor in my spine, in my neck, that is about
10cms long. It was diagnosed on January 1, 2005.
I had a biopsy, but they can't
do anything. If they were to take it out, I could possibly die. One surgeon said
it is unlikely I would be able to get rid of it and another gave me five years
to live. However, I am staying positive.
The surgeons say it has been growing
for about 10-15 years. I have paralysis in my left hand, lack of strength in my
right fingers, nerve pain on the left side of my back, and I used to get dizziness
quite a lot, but that has eased a fair bit in the last year or two.
The doctors
are amazed I'm still walking and are surprised to see in my MRI that my spine
has doubled in size to accommodate it. They think this may have something to do
with the acupuncture I receive from my Dad. I believe I almost died from this
a few years ago, when I was bedridden for five months.
I have done a lot of
charity work in my life, both with animals and people, and I initiated an animal
liberation ceremony at the Dharma center near where I live. We had a good turn-out,
releasing 4050 crickets. We will be doing another one soon. I also maketsatsas
and read literature on the Dharma (my father is Buddhist and introduced me to
it).
One of the big things that has got me through all this was reading your
book Ultimate Healing. I call it my bible, as it has been such a big help, in
the way of changing thought patterns. Whenever I feel down, I turn to that book,
and within a few paragraphs I am lifted.
I hope you are well and happy and
I hope I hear from you soon, because I really need help and I'd like to come out
of this a healthy and better person, from all I'm going through.
Thank you
so much for your time.
Much peace and love,
Julie Brown
[Rinpoche
responds...]
My very dear Julie,
Thank you very much for your kind letter.
I am very sorry for all these different sicknesses that you have. As you have
seen in my healing book, your sickness can be very positive, very good, because
it makes you realize karma. Your sickness did not come from outside, it came from
your own mind - delusion and negative karma. So, thinking like this you can generate
more faith in karma and more faith in wanting to abandon the cause of the suffering
- negative karma - and to purify all the past negative karma. Also, this helps
you and inspires you to engage in Dharma practice to purify and practice strongly
and to not commit negative karma again. This is how your sickness gives you strength
in your life, not only physically but mentally, so you can practice and, in this
way, collect so much merit.
Meditating on the lamrim path, thinking of the
cause of suffering, inspires you to actualize the path. Only by actualizing the
path can you eliminate the cause of suffering - delusion, and only then are you
able to achieve ultimate liberation, freedom forever from old age, sickness, death,
and rebirth, be free forever from all sufferings, from the suffering of suffering,
the suffering of change (which is called samsaric pleasure), and from all-pervasive
compounded suffering.
In this way, your sicknesses are incredibly positive,
because they inspire you to work for liberation. Your sickness helps you to generate
compassion for others, for numberless sentient beings who also have all the different
kinds of sicknesses, so helps you very much to generate compassion for all living
beings. Generating compassion causes you to achieve enlightenment for sentient
beings.
Your sickness is actually the cause for you to be able to achieve enlightenment
and to enlighten all sentient beings: all the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts,
animals, human beings, suras, and asura beings. Without compassion you cannot
really benefit all the numberless sentient beings. Also, this is the quickest
way to achieve enlightenment and to be able to liberate numberless sentient beings
from the oceans of samsaric suffering and their causes and to bring them to enlightenment.
Use
your sickness to develop bodhicitta by practicing tonglen (taking and giving).
Each time you do this you are collecting vast amounts of merit. By the practice
of giving, giving all your body and possessions to numberless sentient beings,
you collect vast amounts of merit each time. When you give all your merits, past,
present, and future, to all sentient beings, each time you do this you collect
unbelievable amounts of merit, even if you do it for just a few seconds.
When
you do the practice of taking, you take numberless sentient beings' sufferings.
In each realm, so many beings are suffering, so you take those sufferings, and
each time you do this you collect so much merit. By taking the suffering of sentient
beings in each realm you create so much merit, even by just doing this practice
one time - you can't imagine. If you do this practice many times a day, it is
unbelievable! This makes your life most productive, the best life.
Please try
to do this practice every day, again and again. This is how you use your sickness
to destroy negative karma and collect so much merit, up to enlightenment.
Also,
think how samsara is in the nature of suffering. This inspires you to be free
from samsara and helps you to end this sickness forever, to end all sufferings.
This is similar to how people use snake poison to cure and heal people bitten
by snakes.
Please try to do this practice of taking and giving and generating
compassion by taking on all the sufferings and their causes and then offering
loving kindness. In Colorado there was one elderly lady who had cancer that was
spreading quickly. The doctor was afraid to do an operation as she was so sick.
She did this meditation and practice of tonglen for some time, and later, when
she went to hospital, the doctor could not find any cancer at all. This is just
one story, but there are many other stories of people being healed by bodhicitta,
by their own mind.
Anyway, please think about these things.
I checked about
your health and these things came out as very good for you to do:
Take eight
Ratnas precious pills (two each week, have a few days break between pills). I
will send these to you.
Take one Kurkyen pill each day for three months. I
will mail this to you.
It would also be good for you to wear these protections:
Hayagriva
White
Umbrella
Liberation from bondage of body, speech, and mind
Great Breath
protection
I will mail these to you. You wear them in a little cloth bag around
your neck, but don't get them wet or sleep with them on (in case you sleep on
top of them, which is disrespectful). Take them off at night but keep them close
by.
I am also making prayers for you.
I also checked and these practices
would be very good for you to do:
Vajra Armor
200,000 Vajrasattva mantrasfor
purification
500,000 Samayavajra mantras
Meditate on the lam-rim. This is
the most important thing - to go over the lamrim again and again until you have
stable realizations.
I hope you enjoy these cards (coming in the post).
With
much love and prayers, please let me know how you are time to time,
Lama Zopa
Purifying
Sickness
A very sick student sent a message to Rinpoche saying he was practicing
tonglen and reciting malas of Vajrasattva.
My very dear Mark,
I just sent
you some cards. I hope you will enjoy them. The practices you are doing now are
excellent, the best practice, especially taking and giving (tonglen) and continue
with Vajrasattva as much as you can.
It is good if you can recite one mala
a day, because all one's obstacles come from negative karma.
I gave Yamantaka
initiation when I was in Canada. I thought at the last minute that maybe you could
come, but as it was only one minute before the initiation you might not have been
able to come that fast.
With much love and prayers...
How to Think about
Sickness
Rinpoche gave the following advice to a man who had been quite ill.
Keep
thinking, "This heavy sickness purifies many years, many lifetimes, many
eons of heavy negative karma that causes the suffering of the lower realms-hell,
hungry ghost, and animal realms-for an inconceivable length of time. That is why
this sickness has to be heavy."
For example, to buy a good quality car
or diamond, you need to pay a lot of money. To buy a big house or property, you
need to pay a very large amount of money. So, if you want to purify an enormous
amount of negative karma, there is also a big price to pay: serious illness in
this life. This is the idea that you should have in the back of your mind.
The
second most important method is to experience this heavy sickness as a way of
developing bodhicitta, the ultimate good heart-cherishing and benefiting others-by
thinking, "I have received all sentient beings' suffering of this type, and
all the rest of their problems-so many sufferings of all the sentient beings of
the six realms-even the subtle obscurations of the arhats and bodhisattvas. I
experience all this suffering for sentient beings." This means that you liberate
them from all suffering and let them have all happiness, from temporary happiness
up to enlightenment. Try as much as possible to think in this way.
Since you
dream of Buddha quite often, you should not need to worry, even at the time of
death. You should think that those dreams mean that Buddha is very happy with
you and will take care of you when you die. You should take refuge every day,
think of Buddha and rely on Buddha, and recite the Mitrukpa mantra as much as
you can.
The two meditations I have described, on how to think, are very important
ones.
I have recently performed 100,000 tsog pujas and mentioned your name
in the dedication. Also, 300 stupas were ordered in Taiwan for your long life.
Each time they put the special mantra in each stupa, they will mention your name
and pray for your long and meaningful life.
Requesting Advice Regarding
Sickness
Rinpoche said the following on asking advice regarding sickness.
It
is better to ask for beneficial practices to perform than cures for sickness,
unless, of course, the person's attitude is to serve others. In that case, if
the person has some sickness, if you heal him or her it has meaning, because it
is in order to help others. If the person is practicing Dharma, to eliminate delusions
and become qualified to liberate others and bring them to enlightenment, to get
better in order to do this work, then this person needs to receive advice. Otherwise,
the cure is just aimed at achieving happiness in this life, and with this motivation
action can be non-virtuous. That means all the expense, effort, and years of treatment
are non-virtue, leading to suffering, not just pain and sickness, but more suffering
in the future. The normal practice is to purify your negative karma and delusions
in order to help others, seeking this long-term benefit.