HIV / AIDS

HIV / AIDS

Practices for Person with HIV
Date of Advice:
December 2021
Date Posted:
December 2024

A student who was HIV-positive asked Rinpoche for practice advice. 

My dear, most precious, most kind one,
Thank you for your letter. For you, Sengdrak Rinpoche’s blessed medicine comes out good. Take one small spoonful early in the morning, then again at ten in the morning, at two in the afternoon, and again in the evening, so that’s four times per day. Do this for five days. Then you can check how you are feeling and what is happening in the body.

Also do tonglen meditation. Read my advice on how to do that.

Then you should recite the great mantra, sung chen, two or three times each day.

You should recite the Diamond Cutter Sutra one or two times each day. Maybe twice a day is better, otherwise once. Try that for one month, it’s very good. In my observation it came out as best.

You can also do nyung näs. This came out in my observation as very good. So do these whenever you can, even if it’s not every day, do it as many times, as much as you can.

The best one, the most important thing, of course, is to be cured forever, to become free from the oceans of samsaric suffering by directly ceasing karma and delusion—directly ceasing the imprint of karma and delusion by the wisdom realizing emptiness.

So please let me know how everything goes with the medicine and the practice.

With much love and prayers ...

AIDS Cured
Date of Advice:
November 2013
Date Posted:
July 2021

Rinpoche advised a student with AIDS to take Tibetan medicine and do these practices. Several years later the student wrote that she had been cured of AIDS. She also took conventional medicine for one year. Rinpoche wanted to make this advice available.

Tibetan medicine recommended by Rinpoche:

  • Gur chung: take two each day for two months.
  • Jüng nga: take one each day for three months.
  • Erma. [This is a spice with medicinal qualities that grows in the Himalayas. The student advised she took the erma powder with juice or in soup.]

Practices advised by Rinpoche:

  • Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga sadhana: every day
  • Water bowls: 100,000
  • Vajrasattva mantras: 40,000
  • Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava) mantra: four malas each day
  • Medicine Buddha practice: as much as possible
  • Short White Tara sadhana
  • Vajra Cutter Sutra: fifty recitations
  • Bum chung (small Prajnaparamita): thirty times
  • Garuda multi-colored Vajrapani. [Rinpoche did not give a specific amount, but the student practiced a lot and felt a strong connection with the deity.]
AIDS Advice and Practices
Date of Advice:
October 2013
Date Posted:
October 2014

A student wrote that he was a homosexual and a devoted Buddhist, but he felt conflict between the two in terms of who he was and how he could practice the precepts and the Buddha’s teaching. In addition, he had previously contracted AIDS. Currently, medication had suppressed the disease, however, he said AIDS had weakened his body and could bring a lingering death . Rinpoche gave the following advice.

My very dear, most kind, most precious wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter, I am very happy to hear from you. You are so fortunate to be a Buddhist, to be devoted to the Buddhist path, to have a rebirth as a human being. This is like the dust when you scratch the earth, however much dust that you get between your nails, then compare that to the rest of the particles of dust on the entire earth. The particles of dust on the rest of the earth are how easy it is to have rebirth in a hell realm, as a hungry ghost or animal.

Normally we think there are a lot of human beings, but it is not like that at all, because we don’t compare it to the sentient beings in the other realms. In reality, being born as a human is still nothing compared to being born as a Buddhist human being. It is so rare, one needs so much merit to be born as a devoted Buddhist, so you are so fortunate.

Of course, the best thing is to renounce all negative karmas of body, speech and mind, to abandon the ten nonvirtues, or at least the five nonvirtues (precepts) which are: sexual misconduct, stealing, killing, telling lies and taking intoxicants. Best is to abstain from all five. That is best, but if that is not possible, then abstain from four; if that is hard, then three; if that is hard, then two; and if that is hard, then abstain from one. If that is hard, then even just upasaka, which means only taking refuge. Buddha is so compassionate that according to the capacity of sentient being, he gave the number of vows that person could keep. So among those five precepts, whatever vow you can keep, then take that vow and in this way you can still practice living in the vows.

The essence is, even if we can’t give something up at the moment—relating to sex, for example— since it becomes negative karma, nonvirtuous, what we can do is make it less, then there will be less negative karma. So there is always a way to make the negative karma less.

Also in your case, you have to be careful so as not to give AIDS to others, so you have to be more careful. Generally for yourself, you have to be careful to not get sick, but even though you have AIDS, I think you will probably live longer if you have a happy life. If you have a more suffering life, then your life will be shorter.

If you are able to practice Dharma, which means to purify defilements and collect extensive merits, this leaves the imprints of the lamrim, the right path to enlightenment, so even if you do not get to do so much practice, if you do something like this, it is very, very beneficial.

Then most important is living your life for others, living life with a good heart as much as possible, with bodhicitta as much as you can. If you live your life with a good heart, then every action of body, speech and mind—even sleeping, eating, going to the bathroom, walking, sitting, doing your job, listening to teachings, meditating, studying, so everything, even getting sick, then getting treatment—everything becomes the cause of enlightenment. Not just to achieve enlightenment, but then to free the numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless humans, numberless suras, numberless asuras and the numberless intermediate state beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering. The second thing is to bring them to full enlightenment, so then your life is really basically very happy. From there, inner happiness comes, and your life is full of happiness. Basically your life is beneficial to other sentient beings, so you will have a long life and also from that a healthy life too.

Actually in reality, people who practice bodhicitta, thought transformation, even if they have problems, even AIDS or whatever it is, this becomes the best enjoyment. Having a problem is the best enjoyment in the life, whether it is cancer or any problem. You can use your experience, the problem, for sentient beings, taking all sentient beings’ problems and the causes of problems, the delusion and karma, and think you receive these. Receive these in your heart and destroy the ego, the self-cherishing thought, as well as ignorance, the concept of true existence, so you achieve the dharmakaya. Then for you, all this becomes the cause of enlightenment, so even when you experience death, you take all sentient beings’ death onto yourself. That eliminates the root of your samsara, from beginningless time up to now, where oceans of samsaric suffering came from.

The root of ignorance is destroyed, the wrong concept as well as the self-cherishing thought, which has been harming you from time without beginning until now, and will continue endlessly in the future. This is not only harming you, but also harming numberless sentient beings, preventing them from achieving enlightenment, liberation, or even samsaric happiness. This is the real enemy. Therefore, for those who have trained the mind in lo-jong, thought transformation, Buddhist psychology, this is the most enjoyable, happiest life, by having problems and even dying, then you die for numberless sentient beings.

Please find attached the Daily Motivation. It is most important to do this motivation in the morning. I am also sending you practice advice.

Recite Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo’s prayer, Calling the Guru from Afar every day if you can, if not then it doesn’t matter. This is to generate very strong guru devotion. The whole lamrim is in this prayer, and also the tantric path, so by reading it mindfully, it leaves an imprint on the mind and plants the seed of enlightenment. It leaves an imprint of the path to enlightenment. 

Try to do Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga daily. If you read the commentary on this practice, you will see the nine benefits of doing the practice.

Whatever you do, always try to benefit others. Even when you take medicine, make this prayer every time, “May my life be most beneficial for sentient beings, to free all sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment.”

Recite OM MANI PADME HUM mantra as much as possible. This purifies negative karma collected from beginningless rebirths and collects merits, especially if you recite this mantra with bodhicitta, by thinking of the numberless sentient beings of the six realms, to free them from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment. Especially generate compassion to all sentient beings and generate the wish to bring them to enlightenment.

Also recite the Medicine Buddha mantra. Visualize the Seven Medicine Buddhas and recite their names. This brings great success, not only temporary happiness but ultimate happiness, not only liberation but full enlightenment, success for oneself and success for numberless others. This is very, very important.

I’m happy that you are going to an FPMT center. There is much choice of practices that you can do, and teachings.

Please study the lamrim, this is most important. Maybe you can read Liberation in the Palm of your Hand from beginning to end, and anything that you don’t understand, you can write that down in a notebook and discuss it with someone who has studied the lamrim well, an old student who has studied, or a geshe. So like this, learn the lamrim well and then do the effortful meditation on the basis of the outline of the lamrim or The Essential Nectar.

Before going to bed, do Vajrasattva meditation, either one mala, half a mala or 21 mantras, with the remedy of the four powers.

Also, a very powerful purification practice is to recite and prostrate to the Thirty-five Buddhas and recite the confession prayer. Begin with that every morning, if possible.

Another practice is to read the Wheel of Sharp Weapons and the seven points of thought transformation, relating to oneself, lo-jong ten-don.

Also read my book, Transforming Problems into Happiness.

Regarding your heath, inner offering pills are good for you.

Recite the Vajra Armor mantra. This is a very famous healing mantra, so you can heal yourself and others.

Also recite Most Secret Hayagriva mantra every day.

Read the Vajra Cutter Sutra, the Golden Light Sutra and the Sanghata Sutra as much as possible. This is good, but of course read with bodhicitta, to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment, then for yourself to achieve omniscient mind, but the main motivation is for sentient beings.

Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers...

Dharma is the Real Medicine
Date Posted:
October 2013

Rinpoche gave the following advice on how to be free from AIDS and all the sufferings of samsara by achieving the peerless happiness of full enlightenment.

If anybody is interested in how to reduce and even cure AIDS, here are some discoveries and some experiences to do with AIDS. A lot depends on mental strength. It makes a huge difference if your mind is happy—even if your body is sick, if your mind is happy then you enjoy life. It definitely makes so much difference; it gives you a lot of strength and you are able to do things.

It seems it is extremely important to live the life quite strongly in practice. I guess this means a disciplined life—no question about physical discipline, but also away from nonvirtue, immoral actions, no question about that. That also helps to support the mind to be happy, strong and emotionally stable. It helps to not have depression at that time —sadness, ups and downs; maybe not so much up, more downs.

There is one student in Queensland, Australia, at Chenrezig Institute, the original center in FPMT. After that, Tara Institute in Melbourne started. It is quite large and has been extremely successful in giving Dharma education and Buddha’s teachings, basically education and practice; showing how to achieve not only temporal peace and happiness for ourselves immediately, right away, but also ultimate happiness, liberation, the cessation of all sufferings and disturbing thought obscurations, emotional thoughts and their actions, karma, including the negative imprints left on the mental continuum—how to clean that away from the mental continuum, and cease that from the mental continuum by actualizing the remedy, the path.

The Dharma is like taking medicine; it is the real medicine. The realizations are the spiritual medicine; only then are we able to be totally free from AIDS and all the rest of the sicknesses, old age, suffering and death, and the suffering of rebirth. We are able to stop the cycle of death and rebirth forever; not only the suffering of pain but also other types of suffering —the suffering of change and other feelings that are suffering but appear as pleasure to the hallucinated mind, so we believe in and grasp at, or become attached to that pleasure. So, total liberation from that. We can be free from the two kinds of suffering by total liberation.

The third type of suffering is all-pervasive suffering. That is when the body and mind nature are pervaded by suffering, because they are created by karma and delusion, the impure thoughts. The desire realm, the aggregates of the body and mind, as well as the form and formless realm aggregates, which are only the consciousness—all these are the contaminated seed of disturbing thoughts, the delusion seed nature, the negative imprints, therefore, all these realms are contaminated.

They are pervaded by suffering because the seed of disturbing thought can compound the suffering of this life and of future lives at any time. Therefore, those who are seeking liberation, ultimate happiness; who would like to achieve ultimate happiness, everlasting happiness, should aim to be liberated forever from these three sufferings. This is the unmistaken liberation, with this objective realization of the ultimate nature of suffering; not only of the two previous sufferings but also the third one, all-pervasive suffering, which includes the top [or peak] of samsara, the fourth level of the formless realm.

In the Hindu religion there is renunciation and detachment to the desire realm, the form and formless realms, up to the third level. There is no higher samsaric realm than the fourth level of the formless realm, the tip of samsara, which is also in the nature of suffering. The tip of samsara is not explained and also right view, emptiness, is not explained [in Hinduism]. The direct realization of emptiness, which directly ceases the disturbing thought obscurations, the seed of disturbing thoughts—that education is not there and that hasn’t happened.

[We should aim] to achieve ultimate everlasting happiness, total liberation from suffering and its causes, and to help others achieve liberation from the oceans of samsaric sufferings—from the problems of human beings, the suffering of rebirth and death, old age and sickness, as well as all the rest of the relationship problems and all the suffering of being unable to find desire object or having found it, being separated from it.

Not only rescuing others from the oceans of human beings’ sufferings, but also from the oceans of hell beings’ sufferings, the oceans of animal realm sufferings, the oceans of preta realm sufferings, the oceans of asura realm sufferings, the oceans of sura realm sufferings and the oceans of intermediate realm sufferings. Not only bringing them to liberation—not just merely liberation from the sufferings of circling in samsara, and the continuity of all the contaminated sufferings of the aggregates—but bringing them into the peerless happiness of full enlightenment, the cessation of all the gross and subtle defilements and the completion of all the realizations. That is the highest benefit to sentient beings; that is the objective of our life. Our objective as human beings, the purpose of our life is to benefit others and to offer the highest benefit to others.

For so many years a highly beneficial education program was offered at Tara Institute to so many sentient beings in this universal spiritual path. It is universal because even sentient beings do not know about such an opportunity; they do not know what can be achieved, but this is what they need to actualize, to liberate themselves and others, when they come to know it and to have the realization. Those who are suffering need to actualize the path, so they need this universal spiritual path in life and they need to see Dharma as their food and medicine.

 

Practices for HIV and AIDS
Date Posted:
September 2012

Advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche for people with HIV or AIDS.

It comes out very good for anyone who is HIV positive or who has AIDS to:

These practices can even be done by people who are not Buddhist. This is just something to try. Doing these practices is an incredible purification that can purify the karma and help the disease go away.

Doing these practices purifies the mind, so that our past negative karma is purified and we collect extensive merits.

It is best is to do these practices with bodhicitta, and to do them for numberless sentient beings who have the same sickness—not only for those who are sick, but for the numberless sentient beings who are suffering in the six realms and the intermediate state.  

 

HIV and Dharma Practice
Date Posted:
May 2011

Rinpoche gave the following advice to a student with HIV who had given the illness to someone else. Now that person was sick, and the student asked if it was more beneficial for him to care for the person or to study a five-year Buddhist Philosophy program.

My very dear one,
I checked and what came out best is to stay and study at Nalanda, taking care of your father and helping in those other ways. Regarding caring for your friend, you can do that in different ways, by talking on the phone, etc. Most important is to support him in the best way, which will really help from life to life, through Dharma imprints.

It’s a very good to plan to do Vajrasattva retreat when you can. There's some advice I gave to other people that you should listen to. This advice is for everyone, but I think it would be very good if you listen to it.

Generally you should do these practices:

Then, read the lamrim. Begin with Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, and spend one month on each topic. For one month mainly focus on guru devotion, then spend one month on the perfect human rebirth, one month on the difficulties of finding it again, etc. Like this, go through each subject of the lamrim; you can use the outline that is in the back of Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. When you finish, start from the beginning again. It doesn’t mean this is the only thing that you meditate on, it’s just your main focus for that month. Also, you don’t have to do all the meditation sitting down; it can be while you are at work or are walking. The main thing is to relate the lamrim to your own life. The point is to have realizations of the lamrim, so keep circling like this until you have stable realizations.

The best thing for your illness is to do bodhicitta meditation—exchanging yourself for others– and emptiness meditation. Use your HIV to achieve enlightenment quickly and to be able to liberate the oceans of suffering sentient beings in the six realms, to bring them to enlightenment. Then, look at your HIV as emptiness, by thinking of it as a subtle dependent arising, merely imputed by your mind. Meditate on it with emptiness, not as existing from its own side, but merely imputed by your mind. HIV doesn’t exist from its own side, it is only imputed by your mind and you label HIV on that. In this way, make it useful: to help you get out of samsara as quickly as possible and achieve enlightenment. Use your HIV to be free forever from samsara, from all the sufferings. This is the most important thing, and this is how to use HIV to help you.

HIV is given to you basically from attachment; it comes from desire and the self-cherishing thought, from ignorance, which is the root of samsara—holding the I as truly existent. Doing lamrim practice and meditation is the best antidote, the best medicine for this. The rest of the world uses HIV to suffer and worry, but that is just creating the cause of samsara and the lower realms. Here, you are using it to be free forever from suffering and the lower realms, and to achieve liberation and enlightenment.

The next best thing you can do is tonglen. Wow, this is the best thing, the benefit that you gain every second that you think “I am experiencing this suffering on behalf of all sentient beings, who are limitless.” You create seven times limitless skies of merit each time you think this–not just once, because you are thinking of numberless sentient beings in each realm. This is an extremely quick way to achieve enlightenment, to get out of samsara, to have all the realizations, to purify all the defilements, even the subtle defilements. So, HIV becomes like a wish-fulfilling jewel.

I already spoke about this one night during the teachings here, so it would be good if you get that transcript and read it. It is about how you can use sickness as a means to attain enlightenment. I was using a stanza from the Wheel of Sharp Weapons. This is how a sickness such as HIV is so powerful, most wishfulfilling, like having skies of wish-granting jewels. In fact, their value is nothing compared to having HIV, which makes you have compassion for all others who also have it and who will experience it in the future. It’s incredible how the disease is bringing you to enlightenment. Think that it is giving you all the realizations to renounce samsara and have unbelievable compassion for sentient beings, especially those who also have HIV. Even a wish-granting jewel doesn’t help to cease the sufferings of all sentient beings and purify numberless eons of negative karma.

Each time you practice tonglen—taking on the suffering of sentient beings—you collect seven times limitless skies of merit. This is like a jet or rocket taking you to the moon. This is your rocket taking you to enlightenment. Your HIV is your rocket to enlightenment. Wow!

Thank you very much for your service to the center, to the teachings of Buddha, and to me, and for your kind heart.

With much love and prayers...

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