My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
I’m very, very happy to receive your kind letter, and yes, I understand you have had many difficulties.

Regarding your observations, if it’s a correct [divination] then it’s OK, but if it comes out wrong many times, then it’s better not to do it. If you’re doing it for yourself maybe it’s OK, but if you’re doing it for others, it becomes very dangerous [if you’re wrong]. If it comes out bad then other people won’t like you, they’ll be angry to you and many problems will arise. Also, it becomes telling a lie.

You have to say, “According to my observation.” You have to say that. That means there can be a different observation by someone else. So you can say, “According to my observation it is like this.” This is correct. If you don’t say it like this and then your observation is not correct, it becomes telling a lie. Before you do [a divination] for other people it has to be correct, which means that it’s OK for them to do something; that it’s right for them. Or that they should not do it and it’s bad if they do it.

Regarding the difficulties, if we compare our lives to hell beings we have incredible peace and happiness, and no suffering at all.

I want to quote Nagarjuna’s teaching, Letter to a Friend:

[86] However much suffering there might be in this (world)
From being violently stabbed for a day with three hundred spears,
That doesn't even roughly (approach), it doesn't even match a fraction
Of the tiniest sufferings in the joyless realms.

[87] Even if you experience extremely unbearable sufferings like that
For hundreds of millions of years,
So long as your destructive force has not been depleted,
You'll not be parted from (that) life for that long.

When three hundred short spears are very heavily put through the body, there’s no need to say how painful that experience is, but there’s no comparison at all with even the smallest suffering of the hell realms. This means a small hell suffering is far beyond that. The hell being’s suffering is unbelievably, unbelievably, most unbelievably, unbelievably great, and, we experience the most unbearable suffering like that for eons—for ten million eons or hundreds of millions of eons.

The next verse, I don’t remember the exact words, but the meaning is that until we finish the cause of the suffering, the karma, we’ll be never separated from a life that is suffering. If we think well about this quotation, the highest and worst suffering of human beings, when it’s compared to a hell being’s suffering it is nothing and our lives are incredibly peaceful and happy. We have to know that. We have to compare and we have to think like that.

In this way we can enjoy our life. The kindness of sentient beings is one thing and there is also the kindness of the guru. All our happiness is a benefit of bodhicitta; it came from bodhicitta, therefore it came from sentient beings. You have to remember this.

It said by the great bodhisattva Shantideva:

[6: 42] Previously I must have caused similar harm
To other sentient beings.
Therefore it is right for this harm to be returned
To me who is the cause of injury to others.

If we didn’t harm others in the past, nobody would harm us. When someone gets angry just by seeing us—they dislike us as soon as they see us and harm our body, speech and mind—whatever suffering we experience is the result of giving harm to others in the past. The past could be in this life, it could be this morning or yesterday, very close, or it could be numberless eons ago.

It’s important to remember often that all the different sufferings are the result of our past negative karma. This reminds us to practice Dharma. In the past we didn’t practice Dharma; that’s why the negative karma was created and the result is happening now.

This reminds us to renounce negative karma, since we don’t like suffering. We want happiness; therefore we need to practice good karma. We come to that conclusion. Whatever suffering, difficulties, problems we’re experiencing, we should come to this point—we need to abandon the cause of suffering and practice the cause of happiness, virtue.

It also said in the Bodhicaryavatara by Shantideva:

[8:135] If I do not completely forsake it
I shall be unable to put an end to suffering,
Just as I cannot avoid being burnt
If I do not cast aside the fire (I hold).

As long as we don’t drop the fire, the burning cannot be stopped. That’s the example. If we don’t give up the I, the suffering cannot be stopped. Especially for us, [who think there is] the real I, the truly existent I that exists from its own side, that exists by itself, what’s called the real I in everyday life.

Those are the words from philosophy, from the text. So that’s the false I, actually. That means it’s most unbelievably worthwhile to give that up because it is false, it does not exist, even for that reason.

By believing that it is real, true, then all the delusions arise. Ignorance, anger, attachment and all the rest of the delusions arise. Then it motivates karma, then we experience suffering—the oceans of suffering of the hell beings, the oceans of suffering of the hungry ghosts, the oceans of suffering of the animals, the oceans of suffering of the humans, the oceans of suffering of the suras, the oceans of suffering of the asuras and the oceans of suffering of the intermediate state beings all arise. That’s what we have experienced from beginningless rebirth until now.

If we don’t realize emptiness, that the I is empty, it does not exist, we have to experience the oceans of suffering of each realm without end again. Not only that, this ignorance, this delusion, this self-cherishing thought—all our suffering came from that.

Misfortune, everything, all the harms to all sentient beings are caused by following this [self-cherishing] and the wrong concepts. Like this, we harm the numberless sentient beings, who have to suffer. They’ve been suffering since beginningless rebirths and they will have to suffer again unless [we abandon the self-cherishing thought.]

This self-cherishing thought, this ignorance is most unbelievably, unbelievably harmful, dangerous, our worst enemy. It’s something to be abandoned right away; we can’t wait for even one second. The reality is like that.

As Shantideva said in Bodhicaryavatara:

[8:136] Therefore, in order to allay the harms inflicted upon me
And in order to pacify the sufferings of others
I shall give myself up to others
And cherish them as I do my very self.

If we don’t renounce the I, our suffering cannot be stopped. In order to pacify our own suffering and the sufferings of others, we must give ourselves up for others and cherish others as we do ourselves. This is the basic practice, the most important practice in our life until we achieve enlightenment. And not only in this life, it’s also the most important practice in all our lives until we achieve enlightenment. If we want to achieve enlightenment and free the sentient beings from samsara and bring them to enlightenment by ourselves, this is what we should practice.

When you think of His Holiness and recite His Holiness’ name mantra with meditation, with understanding, think numberless buddhas are guiding you and other sentient beings through the manifestation of the holy body. His Holiness’s holy body is guiding you and sentient beings. So with one-pointed concentration on that, thinking of his skies of kindness, then recite the mantra. Next, from His Holiness light rays are emitted with compassion, purifying you. Think you receive all the realizations up to enlightenment.

When you think of me, think of the numberless buddhas guiding you through my form. You can think that they are bringing you from the lower realms, from samsara, and bringing you to enlightenment, from lower nirvana to enlightenment. Their kindness is like the sky; each kindness is like the sky. Think nectar is coming, with compassion, and is entering you, purifying all the defilements and negativities collected from beginningless rebirths up to now. These negativities are purified and at the end, you receive all the realizations. Think that.

I’m not saying that I’m an enlightened being or that I have realizations; I’m not saying that. It’s numberless buddhas who are guiding you through this form that you have the karmic connection or link with, so think like that. It’s the same as with His Holiness. With that meditation, you can recite my name mantra. That is great, great, great.

At the moment, until you have stable realizations, it will help to be able to see [the guru] in that way. This is the very essence of guru yoga meditation.

For the success of all your wishes for happiness, there are pujas, there are wealth vases, and there is the making of offering tormas for wealth-giving deities. There are many different deities and methods.

However, according to my experience, growing over many years, little by little, by making offerings to the gurus and helping sentient beings, through that, I’m able to give more and more help to the sentient beings who need help, and also to the monasteries and monks.

Sera Je Monastery has thousands of monks and I used to give food for many years. A food fund was created with five million dollars, and now they’re supposed to get money from that. [Read more about the Sera Je Food Fund here.] Besides that, I’ve been helping the khangtsens, the small sections of the monasteries, with building, making houses and so on. There are many, many projects. Also building monasteries, lay people’s projects and schools, Tibetan refugee old folks’ homes—there are many, many projects.

We recently bought several ambulances, and [provide help] in different places. At the Panchen Lama’s monastery of Tashi Lhunpo, the abbot came here and asked us for help, so we decided to offer toward their expenses each year and for their debating place. We have offered funds already [US$430,575 for the debate courtyard and US$36,412.50 for the library]. Then one Mongolian family gave $100,000 and said they will [give the rest] when their business develops.

Gyume Monastery is also making a food fund. It seems they need a million or two million dollars or more. They didn’t calculate, they didn’t inform us, but Roger and Ngawang Sangye, a monk who lived at Sera, calculated this, so we offered probably $400,000 and the rest is left [still to be fundraised].

We already helped build many, many holy objects. We built a big stupa in Thangme, where I was born in Solu Khumbu, on the back side of the mountain. That was done last year, about a year ago. We did so many things.

We are able to do all these things due to making offerings to the gurus and helping sentient beings in the past.

From my experience, I want to tell you that success is by helping even the ants. For example, don’t step on the ants on the road. Watch for them and when you sit down, see if there are any animals there. This is according to Vinaya. You have to watch.

In Washington I started to make charity to the ant nests. There are two monks in Washington, at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land retreat place, and one monk goes each week to make charity to the ants. He spends several hours; sometimes there are hundreds of ants nests and sometimes less. The food we give them is tsampa mixed with water blessed by Padmasambhava’s mantra. This is a special mantra to achieve enlightenment very quickly. His Holiness’s mani pills are also crushed and put in the tsampa, which is dried and sprinkled over the nests. Then each week we bought many hundreds of worms used as fishing bait. I think now they’re liberating crickets and other insects.

In Aptos, we buy fishing worms and sometimes other animals. Each week we save them from being killed and we liberate them. We use the blessed water and put it on them and take them around the stupa to purify them. Each time we take them around the stupa, relics, tsa tsas and other holy objects, which creates the cause of enlightenment. It’s most unbelievable, unbelievable. 

We try to help even animals, to liberate animals. The problem is we don’t have a place [large enough] to keep all the animals. We liberate animals many times, so we’re thinking to buy a big piece of land to keep the liberated animals. We’ve been looking here in Nepal for a long time. We also have an animal sanctuary in Ladakh, so there are many, many projects. We are also helping people, even the little that we can do to help people, to save them from problems. We help even the insects, the animals, as well as people.

As much as possible you can help others, then in your life whatever you wish to happen will happen. Without effort it will easily happen. Anything you do will succeed, difficulties won’t happen or they become less and less. You should live your life like this, then you will be saved from even small problems and others will be saved from that too. So you should do whatever you can. 

Besides reciting OM MANI PADME HUM and so forth—with bodhicitta for the numberless sentient beings, for all the sentient beings—you can also read the Golden Light Sutra and the Arya Sanghata Sutra. You said you're reading these texts. That’s incredibly good, unbelievably good.

The Arya Sanghata Sutra collects [so much merit.] I’m not going to repeat it, but it’s unbelievable, unbelievable. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. It brings unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable happiness and success. You can’t believe it yourself.

As long as the Golden Light Sutra is in this world, Buddhadharma is there. It’s unbelievable. When the Golden Light Sutra disappears, then Buddhadharma in this world disappears, it is said. So that’s unbelievably good.

You received very good advice from His Holiness. Definitely His Holiness is giving you advice, even though you didn’t see His Holiness and you didn’t talk to him. This happens to many people.

There’s a Tibetan nun who practiced Dolgyal; actually she didn’t practice it, but she used it for business [success]. She was advised by His Holiness not to do this practice. She had a dream of His Holiness and he said, “Abandon Dolgyal; don’t practice it.” She had the dream, but she didn’t [follow the dream advice] because her father was very much following Dolgyal, by following another lama, and then she followed too, even though she was advised not to.

Lama Felix, who teaches Dharma at his center in Singapore, with two or three monks helping him, was practicing Dolgyal. Then he had a dream of His Holiness, who said, “Do not practice Dolgyal.” This happened to several people I know. It’s incredible, unbelievable, that His Holiness sees them and talks to them. It’s incredible. You are so fortunate.

It’s true, [it’s best] not to gamble, while. at the same time those people are screaming that they have difficulties in their life, no money and so forth. They do all those things that waste money, like spending so much on smoking and drinking, wasting so much money, but if they stopped, they would save the money spent gambling. It’s ridiculous to waste so much of their money and then they don’t have any money left. Ridiculous. Also, there are those who are drinking or making fermented drinks.

Padmasambhava explained in detail about the incredible evil beings, the females. Their period came out [on the ground, then a plant grew from that.] Then they made prayers [for the plant to be smoked and for it to cause harm in the future.] Then came opium, [also tobacco and other substances] for cigarettes, for sniffing. The leaves, the poisonous leaves which grow near Lawudo, by smoking them there is a very bad result. [Smoking] chases away all the protectors from the white side, the virtuous side. Those protectors who like to collect virtue and help sentient beings go away.

Then evil beings from the black side come, the spirits and so forth. Then it causes wars, disease, unbelievable, unbelievable dangers of the earth, landslides, earthquakes and so many things, land problems, also unbelievable fire that even the whole government cannot stop immediately but only after many months. Numberless animals die as a result, so many small ones and even big ones, and even human beings.

There are so many dangers from wind, cyclones, tornadoes, whirlwinds and so forth, which all destroy people’s houses. Also floods, tsunamis, so many problems, including floods which take away the houses. [Smoking] causes all this; it harms the nagas and landlords who are not people but spirit beings, all those. It causes so many harms—what happened recently in America, China, Japan and so many countries, all those things.

Smoking is very bad for the environment, it’s worse for the environment. Also the fermented drink, chang, all this came from the bad, impure substances. Buddha explained about the shortcomings; it’s unbelievable.

It is said in the Mindfulness Sutra that as a result we are reborn in the crying hell and those who helped pour the wine are reborn around the crying hell. That means we are trapped there for eons. There are no doors or windows; it’s an iron house, totally oneness with heat, red-hot, unbelievably hot, but we don’t die for eons and eons. Then there’s another one, the hell of great crying, which is even hotter than the iron house, and if we escape from that, there’s yet another one, it's unbelievable.

So we should never do that. If we love ourselves, we can never do that and we don’t energize others to drink wine. We generate compassion for others who are creating the cause of the hell realms.

I’m thinking to make a book about the environment. People talk about the environment so much, but what they say is really nothing. The danger, the harm of smoking cigarettes, sniffing [substances], taking opium and all these things are the worst, so I’m thinking of making a book on these things, and to have it translated into other languages, English and so forth. Basically it will contain Padmasambhava’s quotations, so people can print out the quotations, put them in plastic and put in restaurants and offices as much as possible, then anyone who wants to practice can. Not everyone will believe it, but some will. There will be certain people who will stop smoking, drinking and so forth, so it’s good to help them.

Medicine Buddha practice and OM MANI PADME HUM are common practices, so you should do these. Also do prostrations by reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names. Lama Tsongkhapa did so many hundreds of thousands of prostrations with the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names, then he had realizations like rainfall.

As you’ve been doing, continue Vajrasattva practice with the remedy of the four opponent powers before going to bed. You can look in books that explain these powers.

We have to understand the importance of Vajrasattva. We need to purify by reciting Vajrasattva mantra, either the long one twenty-one times, or the short one, OM VAJRASATTVA HUM, twenty-eight times. Otherwise, today’s negative karma becomes double tomorrow, then the next day it becomes triple, and it goes on like that, increasing more and more. Wow, wow, wow, wow. Then after fifteen days we have created so much heavy negative karma. When it increases like this, it becomes the same as having killed one human being. Even if nobody knows that we’ve killed a human being, each day the negative karma is increasing. Today’s negative karma increases by tomorrow [if we don’t purify it].

Today, if we create negative karma with body, speech, and mind; if we’re motivated by anger or attachment to this life, then it becomes nonvirtue. It doesn’t have to be that we killed a human being, a big thing; any action done with anger or attachment becomes negative karma.

Then after fifteen days, by increasing day-by-day, it becomes equal to killing a human being. So you can imagine the reality—wow, wow, wow—it’s unbelievable. That one negative karma increases day-by-day, and after fifteen days that one negative karma becomes 18,184, so it increases that much. Just one negative karma increases from today, for example. So like that, after fifteen days it becomes the same as killing a human being.

You see, there are many negative karmas collected with body, speech, and mind, many in twenty-four hours, and they’re increasing day-by-day. They’re double today, triple tomorrow, and it goes on and on. Wow, wow, wow.

Then after fifteen days, it’s like creating the karma of having killed many human beings—not just one, it’s like having killed many human beings. After eighteen days [it increases by 100,071 times], so by the time we die, if we never do Vajrasattva, even one negative karma becomes like a mountain. One small negative karma, like an atom, by multiplying, it becomes like a mountain, so heavy, unbelievably heavy.

It increases, it multiplies, so by the time we die this one negative karma has become like a mountain. One negative karma increases like that. There are so many negative karmas every day created with body, speech, and mind, so then we have so many mountains. With all this negative karma collected we will go to the lower realms and suffer for eons and eons. There are not even the worldly pleasures in the lower realms, only the most unbelievable suffering. That is materialized and fills the whole sky, like that. Wow, wow, wow, wow.

Therefore, now we are human beings, so now, each day, each hour, each minute, each second, is so precious, unbelievably precious. The opportunity to abandon the cause of suffering, negative karma, and collect virtue is so precious, unbelievably precious. So we must practice Dharma and not waste time. We must practice Dharma; this opportunity is so precious.

Therefore, recite the Vajrasattva mantra—twenty-one long mantras or twenty-eight short ones, whichever you recite, that number has the power to stop multiplying today’s negative karma by tomorrow, and to purify today’s negative karma as well as negative karma collected in the past. It’s unbelievably, unbelievably important. The Vajrasattva practice is so good, and with the remedy of the four powers it becomes the most powerful purification. So please continue.

If you can, please recite Jampel Tsenjö, Chanting the Names of Noble Manjushri. That much I’ll tell you now.

Thank you very much.

You should not resign; please help the center. In my observation it’s bad if you resign and good if you can help. Thank you very much. You are most welcome to enlightenment. Goodbye samsara.

Please study Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand from beginning to end and read it eleven times. Do effortful meditation following the lamrim outline twice from beginning to end, then do effortless meditation.

Thank you very much. Also please take care of your child.

With much love and prayers ...