My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter, I was very happy to receive it. I am sorry about [not replying to] the last letter you sent.

I accept your request for me to be your guru. There must be some karma. It’s not that I’m as great as you think, but I accept because maybe there is past karma and you are a sincere person.

If you have received the Chenrezig Great Initiation, then if you do one nyung nä well, it is said that 40,000 eons of negative karma get purified, but that happens even just by reciting the mantra. By reciting one mala of the long Chenrezig mantra, 40,000 eons of negative karma get purified and of course, it can be much more—it depends on how strongly you have loving compassion and bodhicitta for sentient beings.

It is said that just by doing one nyung nä well or reciting ten malas of OM MANI PADME HUM each day, then if you are on a mountain or a hill and many people down below can see you, their negative karma will get purified. For example, if you are an actress or something like that and millions of people see you, or if you are a great teacher and hundreds and hundreds of people come to listen to you, then their negative karma gets purified.

If you do one nyung nä well or recite ten malas of OM MANI PADME HUM each day and go in the water, (for example, a lake,) the water gets blessed, so the many animals in the water get purified and it helps them not to be born in the lower realms. Also when you die and your body is burned, the smoke purifies others and they won’t be born in the lower realms. If you are doing massage, then however many people you massage, they get purified and won’t go to the lower realms. And if the wind touches you and then touches other people, animals or insects, they get purified. It is the same with water or dust that comes in contact with you—it is naturally blessed and then when it touches others, they get purified.

In the same way, if you shake hands with someone after doing one nyung nä or reciting ten malas of OM MANI PADME HUM a day, then other people’s negative karma is purified. I think sometimes that because I recite some mantras, I feel to just go outside in the market or just go outside and shake people’s hands, because it benefits others. 

My guru, His Holiness Zong Rinpoche, who has passed away now, was the abbot of Ganden Shartse, one of the monasteries that had many, many thousands of monks in Tibet. He was very, very strict, and he would scold the monks, so the government asked him not to be abbot. At London airport, one lady came up to Rinpoche and he shook hands with her, though it’s not his style to shake hands. After they shook hands, Rinpoche said, “Oh, that also became meaningful.” But that’s not related to having done nyung nä or recited Chenrezig mantra, it’s because Rinpoche has the realization of clear light and of course, Rinpoche is the deity Heruka. If you have realized clear light, you have the power that if you shake somebody’s hand, that other person gets blessed naturally and it purifies that person’s negative karma. That’s why Rinpoche said, “Oh, it became meaningful.” Of course, Rinpoche is Heruka.

If somebody has the realization of clear light, Heruka, everyone around gets purified and gets the blessing—even neighbors get purified; even animals get purified. Touching with the hand purifies them, so their negative karma is purified. So there is great benefit to the sentient beings.

If you have done a nyung nä or ten malas of Chenrezig mantra, because you have generated yourself as the deity it becomes meaningful, even if animals see or touch you, or you touch the animals. One time I was at Shi-nä Land [A Land of Calm Abiding, USA], and I was reciting the Arya Sanghata Sutra for the three old horses that belong to the land. The caretaker had to feed the horses so much food, on and on, to keep the horses there. I was reading in Tibetan, not English. That time many flies came on my body and because I recited mantras that morning—I don’t remember if I recited OM MANI PADME HUM, but I recited lots of other mantras—I thought that was worthwhile, because it would purify their negative karma. I thought like that.

So my suggestion for you is that if you can do 100 nyung näs it will be so good. Our teacher Geshe Lama Konchog, who passed away at Kopan, did 1,000 nyung näs and another high lama in Nepal, who is like a professor—he is a lharampa geshe from Drepung Monastery—did 2,000 nyung näs and his disciple did 3,000 nyung näs. This lama benefited so many people. He organized people in so many places to recite 100 million OM MANI PADME HUM mantras and in many Himalayan regions he made a law not to hunt and kill animals any more. 

When I was in hospital in Australia I saw on TV so many cows and sheep being sold to Indonesia to be killed. They even showed how the animals were killed. The animals were standing in lines and they showed how the cows were killed. The men tied a rope around the cow and pulled it down. The cow didn’t want to go down, but they pulled it down and killed it. So I thought that even though I don’t have the power to stop this, if I get better, I will spread the message to everybody so people can try to become vegetarian. Even if the subject is tantra, still I will spread this message. Not telling people they have to become vegetarian, but telling them it is good. 

One lady in Singapore decided to take the eight Mahayana precepts every day for the rest of her life when she heard I was sick. That means not only being vegetarian, but also other precepts—besides being vegetarian there are other precepts. One person in Vietnam became vegetarian for her whole life.

So, for example, in Australia, people demonstrated against so many animals being sold to Indonesia to be killed and they stopped it. I was unbelievably happy to hear this, it is so good. One of the best things is that when people heard I was sick, in Tibet they liberated many yaks and sheep, besides all the animals liberated in Singapore and other places. Even in Tibet, many animals were liberated. 

You are asking about benefiting people and animals, so if you can do these nyung näs, it is really, really good and beneficial. The other thing is that if you want to help animals you can recite OM MANI PADME HUM in their ears, not quietly but loudly. Western people mumble the mantras quietly, but then the animals can’t hear. This is also good for people and children. First, recite OM MANI PADME HUM. Then second, the Maitreya Buddha mantra is very good to recite for people, for children and animals, so that they don’t get reborn in the lower realms. 

If we recite the Maitreya Buddha mantra, we create the karma to born as a thousand wheel-turning king, and it helps us to engage in the ten virtues. Also, Maitreya Buddha will look for us after Shakyamuni Buddha’s teachings stop; he will look for us and reveal Dharma, and he will give a prediction for us to become enlightened at that time. That happens for any animal that hears the Maitreya Buddha mantra, so there is no question for the person who recites it. That’s the incredible benefit of reciting the Maitreya Buddha mantra.

You can also recite the Medicine Buddha mantra for animals so they won’t be reborn in the lower realms, and if you know the mantras for the five powerful deities for purification, you can recite all of them. Those are very powerful if you know them by heart. They are: Kunrig, Mitrugpa, Namgyalma, Stainless Pinnacle and Wish-granting Wheel. 

Please find below my advice for your practice, what you should focus on for your life. 

These preliminary practices are for purification and to collect extensive merits, to allow realizations and to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings.

• Refuge: 500,000
• Dorje Khadro burning offering: 30,000
• Nyung Nä retreat: 100
• Tong-len: 500,000

Read the lamrim once from beginning to end; study it, then anything you don’t understand, you can write in a book and ask a student who has done very good study to explain it, or ask a geshe or lama.

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

This is for effortful experience once you have read the complete lamrim from beginning to end. Then try for the effortless experience of whichever realization you haven’t achieved. For example, train your mind in guru devotion, to have a stable realization seeing the guru 100 percent as a buddha —not just for a few hours or days, but for months and years. Stable. Then train the mind in renunciation of this life and the next life, and bodhicitta. 

Do some emptiness meditation every day, even just for a few minutes, either by reading the Heart Sutra or any other teachings or stanzas, or using the four analyses. 

After generating bodhicitta, put more emphasis on tantra —the generation and completion stage. 

So the conclusion is: life is very short and this is about one time that you have got a human rebirth, which is most unbelievably precious, therefore you should train the mind to have some development and some realization in the path. So this way either you have four realizations, or three, if not three then two, or at least one, or at least close to the realization, then it is so easy to have realization in future lives.

At least every day, for realization of the path, for enlightenment and to enlighten all sentient beings, the minimum practice is to recite a lamrim prayer and do direct meditation on the lamrim. Also, recite your own deity’s graduated path (the prayer is at the end of the long sadhana of the deity.) You must at least do these two as a minimum practice.

It is very important to meditate on the lamrim every day. This is very important. Also recite one lamrim prayer, such as The Foundation of all Good Qualities, The Three Principal Aspects of the Path, etc, every day, reading it slowly and going over the meaning. Lamrim is what you need to actualize, no matter how long it takes. Please put your effort there.

You are probably doing Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga every day. If so, this is excellent; if not, you can start now. This is when you can stop and do the lamrim meditation, before the guru absorbs into you. Stop and meditate on whatever section of the lamrim you are up to.

Continue doing whatever lamrim topic you are on. Do the meditation every day, going through the subjects slowly. Whatever meditation you did in the morning, continue with that mind during the day, so that way your mind is in lamrim all day. 

Please try to meditate on the lamrim based on guru yoga. On this basis, you get all the realizations and the most success in your life, so it is important to try to achieve all the realizations, in order to actualize enlightenment. This is in order to liberate numberless sentient beings and enlighten them. That’s the real project, the real goal of one’s life. 

So, please practice as much as you can. Life is not long and the nature of this life is impermanent, so death can happen at any time. This is the foundation of Buddha’s teachings, and this was the last advice Buddha gave before showing the aspect of passing away. 

What makes your life most meaningful is meditation on the lamrim, then living your life with bodhicitta motivation. This is the best.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

PS: Also, it is very beneficial if you recite these two mantras every day: the mantra of Completely Pure Stainless Light and the mantra taught by the Buddha Droden Gyalwa Chhö. Please also read the benefits.