How to Benefit Animals
Practices for Insects and Other Animals, Living and Deceased
Rinpoche explained various ways to benefit insects and other animals, with specific advice for ants, worms, birds, fish and so forth.
How to Benefit Deceased Insects and Other Animals
The main thing you can do to benefit them is to recite the mantras of the Compassion Buddha (OM MANI PADME HUM), Stainless Pinnacle, Lotus Pinnacle of Amoghapasha, Namgyalma (the short one) and the mantras of the five powerful deities. [Find links to a PDF of these mantras in the FPMT Catalogue.]
After reciting the mantras a few times, or it can be fifteen or twenty times or one mala of each mantra, whatever you can, then you can blow on the dead body of the insect to purify its negative karma and obscurations collected since beginningless rebirths. Visualize that it then generates into the deity; depending on which mantra you recited, then that deity.
Of course, to begin with, generate bodhicitta motivation:
“May I free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to full enlightenment, especially these insects, the dead animals, who are my mother sentient beings from whom I have received all my happiness, not only today’s happiness, but also the next life’s happiness and ultimate happiness, enlightenment. It is received from each of them and they have all been my mother and kind to me since beginningless time.”
After you have recited the mantras, blown on the insects and visualized them as the deity, dedicate the merit:
“Due to all the merit created in the three times by me, by sentient beings and numberless buddhas, may bodhicitta be generated in the hearts of all the six-realm sentient beings, all the sentient beings in this world and particularly the students of FPMT and benefactors.
“May anybody who sees me, touches me, remembers me, thinks about me, talks to me, hears my voice, sees my photo, dreams of me; anybody who helps me or harms me, dislikes me or likes me, praises me or criticizes me, including my friends and family, may they never ever be reborn in the lower realms, may they be reborn in a pure land where they will become enlightened or may they receive a perfect human body, meet the Mahayana teachings and meet a perfectly qualified Mahayana guru who reveals the unmistaken path to enlightenment, and by pleasing the holy mind of the virtuous friend may they achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible.
“Due to all the merit created in the three times by me, by sentient beings and numberless buddhas, may this animal or insect be reborn in the pure land where it can be enlightened, or at least have a perfect human rebirth and meet the pure Mahayana teachings and meet the perfect guru who reveals the unmistaken path to enlightenment, and by pleasing most the holy mind of the guru, achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible.
“Due to all the merit created in the three times by me, by sentient beings and numberless buddhas, that which does not exist from its own side, may the I, which does not exist from its own side, achieve buddhahood , peerless happiness, which does not exist from its own side, which is empty, and then lead all the sentient beings, who do not exist from their own side, to that buddhahood, which does not exist from its own side, by myself alone, who do not exist from my own side.”
How to Benefit Insects and Animals in General
Normally after any prayer, sadhana or mantra recitation that you do in your daily life as commitments or practices, you can keep a bottle of water next to you, then after each recitation blow into the bottle of water. Then when you see a living or dead insect or animal you can sprinkle the blessed water on it.
The monk in Washington, Ven. Tharchin, has been doing this every day when he does his prayers. After each mala of mantras he blows in a bottle of water, then he mixes this water with tsampa (roasted barley flour), sugar, butter and blessed pills from His Holiness the Dalai Lama (mani pills). These are crushed very well and then all this is mixed as a dry, fine powder mixture. Then he goes to about twenty different ant nests around the retreat land and he does the practice of Charity to Ants, by sprinkling this mixture on the ant nests while reciting mantras and in this way he is benefiting the ants. After one week, all the tsampa has been eaten by the ants. This practice started a few years ago when I found two ant nests on the retreat land in Washington and I did this practice for them. Now it is being done every week.
In addition to this, worms are bought every week. These are worms that otherwise would be used as bait for fishing, so the mantra water is sprinkled on them and then they are taken around so many holy objects, mantras are recited and then they are released into the garden. So about 1,300 worms are liberated each week like this.
In the past we collected all the dead insects around the house, the dead moths and bugs, and we even asked the neighbors to collect all their dead insects and give them to us, then we put all the dead insects on a cloth above a bucket, and poured the mantra water over the insects. So the insects stay on the cloth and the water drains through it, blessing their bodies. Also, reciting the different mantras: Compassion Buddha (OM MANI PADME HUM), Stainless Pinnacle, Lotus Pinnacle of Amoghapasha, Namgyalma mantra (short) and the five powerful deity mantras. You can also recite Vajrayogini mantra if you are practicing that, but normally it is the five powerful deity mantras, which are extremely powerful and also Mitukpa mantra. However, the main one is Chenrezig, the Compassion Buddha mantra.
So do the purification like that. You can collect the dead animals and when you have quite a lot collected then you can do this, blessing them with the mantra water that you have already created by reciting your daily mantras and then blowing over the water. As you pour the water, think it purifies all their negative karmas collected from beginningless rebirths, then at the end think they are purified and they all become the deity.
After that, you can put the blessed dead insects in the ocean or river, but you can’t throw them in the garbage after you have visualized them as the deity. Or you can put them in your soup at nighttime. I’m joking.
For any insects that we find in the house, whether dead or alive, we use the animal liberation catchers to pick them up, so then the insects are placed inside the little box. The Namgyalma mantra is on the top of the box, so as the insects go under that, then however long they are there, they always get purified. I am sending you these insect catchers, so you can have them and use them. [You can find the Animal Liberation Tools PDF in the FPMT Foundation Store.]
On each of the small boxes there are mantras that bless the insect while it is inside and also words showing what to think and what to say to the animals, etc. The box has other mantras on it, so that when the insect goes under the mantras, 100,000 eons of negative karma are purified. There is Namgyalma mantra and also Lotus Pinnacle of Amoghapasha mantra.
If the insect is alive and still in the container, you can also take it around a stupa. Stupas have the four dharmakaya relic mantras, which are usually written in gold on the life tree, as well as rolled around it. The stupas in FPMT have so many of the four dharmakaya relic mantras inside.
Even a stupa that has only one copy of the four dharmakaya relic mantras inside, even just one mantra, every atom of the stupa has so much power and the insects that land on the stupa are purified; if they touch the stupa it purifies their negative karma. Even if the rain comes down and touches the stupa and then that rain, after touching the stupa, touches any insect on the ground etc., it purifies those insects. Even the wind that has touched the stupa, when the wind touches any other being it blesses them. After the wind has touched the stupa, then any human being or animal that is touched by the wind is purified. Any dust that touches the stupa, then if the same dust touches a human being or animal they all get purified.
There are incredible benefits of the four dharmakaya relic mantras. One of the mantras is the secret relic mantra, so if this mantra is inside the stupa, even if we go around that stupa just one time, it purifies all our negative karma completely. It even purifies the heavy negative karma to be reborn in the eight hot hells, which are: 1) being alive again and again; 2) black line; 3) gathered and crushed; 4) crying; 5) great crying; 6) hot; 7) extremely hot; and 8) unbearable, inexhaustible hot hell realm. If we are born there it is for one intermediate eon, then even if this world becomes empty, if our karma is not finished, then we are reborn in the inexhaustible hell realm in other universes, and this continues until our karma finishes.
[You can find a link to the four dharmakaya relic heart mantras in the FPMT Catalogue. Go to Printable Cards, then click on Protection Items.]
By going around the stupa one time it completely purifies all that negative karma and we don’t have to be reborn in the eight hot hell realms. Not only that, our life goes toward enlightenment without break, we continuously go to enlightenment and by not returning to the lower realms, that also that helps us to be born in the pure land.
There are so many incredible, unbelievable, unbelievable benefits, just from this one mantra. Here I am talking about the essence of just one mantra, but there is also a mantra called "Ornaments of Enlightenment," so if you have that mantra inside the stupa, then even with just one mantra inside, by going around the stupa you collect the same merit as having built 100,000 stupas.
This is just the very basic essence of the benefits, but they are so vast. It purifies the negative karma of having killed one’s father and mother, killed an arhat, drawn blood from a buddha and created disunity amongst the Sangha. These are very heavy negative karmas that when created we have to experience the karma without break [five immediate negativities]. So all these negative karmas get purified. The karma of just going around the stupa or statue that has the four dharmakaya relic mantras inside is so, so, so unbelievable.
These are just some of the benefits of the mantras, but there are far more benefits of the Lotus Pinnacle [of Amoghapasha] mantra, Stainless Pinnacle mantra, Stainless Beam mantra and the Ornaments of Enlightenment mantra. One of the benefits of the Ornaments of Enlightenment mantra is that by putting this mantra inside the stupa, you get the same merit as having built 100,000 stupas.
These are unbelievable, unbelievable benefits that you are giving to the animals and insects by taking them around a stupa that has the four dharmakaya relic mantras inside and by the way you also get unbelievable benefits.
If you have a stupa in your home, when guests come over to visit, you can also take them around the stupa if that is possible and convenient. Or you could even offer them a drink and by the way you carry the drink around the stupa, so they follow you and, in this way, they are circumambulating. Or while you are talking, you can be walking around the stupa. This is for those who don’t believe in stupas, so in this way they get to go around the stupa, by the way.
Of course, as I have already mentioned, any live insects you find in the house, like ants, bugs, moths, etc., you can put them in a container and take them around the stupa. However many holy objects there are inside the stupa, for example, if there are one billion holy objects inside, and you have one plastic bag with one thousand crickets in it—sometimes you can get these from a pet store as they feed them to other animals—by taking them around the stupa, you help them to create the cause of enlightenment one billion times.
So I just wanted to mention a few ways you can think about helping sentient beings—there are so many ways to help them and it is incredibly enjoyable.
If you can, from time to time buy bait worms from the market, whatever you can get, even two or three boxes, and take them around the stupa, bless them with mantra water and then release them in your garden.
Here in Washington, as we have to go the shops regularly, I thought each time we go shopping to buy a box of worms, so then I can take them around the altars here, which have so many tsa tsas, texts, statues, etc. Last time we went shopping I bought ten boxes [of worms] and carried them around, not so much, then Ven. Tharchin and Ven. Kevin also took them around the holy objects.
I also want to mention some other ways we are trying to help the animals in Washington, just to give you an idea. Here in Washington we have a bird bath. Ven. Tharchin puts in water that has been blessed by the Padmasambhava mantra, so the benefit is that by drinking the water it’s the cause of achieving enlightenment in one lifetime. It is a very blessed mantra. How we do this is by putting the mantra [etched on glass] inside a jug of water, then water is poured from that into the birdbath. The reason we don’t put the mantra straight into the bird bath is so that the birds don’t sit on top of it and then create negative karma, so instead we put the mantra in a jug filled with water and we pour from the jug. In addition, we add mantra water that has already been blessed by recitation. As I mentioned above, we can recite mantras and then blow in a bottle of water. In this way, when the birds drink or bathe in this water it benefits them and helps them to quickly achieve enlightenment.
In addition to the blessed water, Ven. Tharchin adds very finely powdered mani pills that have been blessed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and thousands of monks. These pills are crushed and mixed with the water for the birds. In addition we have a speaker by the bird bath and bird feeder, which is playing the Golden Light Sutra, Arya Sanghata Sutra and Vajra Cutter Sutra, as well as different mantras, twenty-four hours a day. So when the birds come, they hear the sutras being recited and this purifies their mind and plants the seed of enlightenment. Actually, the birds and animals who get to hear these sutras are more fortunate than even the billionaires and millionaires in this world who do not have the fortune to hear these sutras.
When the birds drink the water they are so fortunate because it purifies them in many ways. It not only stops their thirst, it also purifies their mind and negative karma. For all those who bathe in the water or eat the seeds in the bird feeder, it purifies so much negative karma. Even the water given to the birds benefits them. We also have mantras on the roof of the bird feeder—Namgyalma mantra and also the mantras that just by seeing and by going under the mantra, 100,000 eons of negative karma are purified. The birds also hear the recitation of the sutras and powerful mantras day and night while they eat the seeds. In addition, by feeding the birds it stops them having to eat other insects and create negative karma that way.
The other day we went to a large lake and put the same Padmasambhava mantra there. We had it printed on tin and we stuck the tin mantra on plastic so we could place it standing up on the side of the lake in the water, so that animals don’t swim over the top and also, so the mantra is not on the ground. We also have Namgyalma mantras which are laminated and then we put them inside hard plastic, so they float and are kept dry and the mantras are protected.
The mantra floats, so we put a few on the lake’s surface. Unless people find them and throw them away, they should bring benefit to the animals for a long time. By having the Namgyalma mantra in the water it blesses all the fish and sentient beings, it purifies their negative karma and if they die, they get born in a higher realm and hopefully meet the Dharma. So, it purifies their negative karma. We are hoping to put more of these mantras around in different lakes.
These practices are different ways you can benefit sentient beings, including the insects. This is what makes your life most beneficial, most happy, most meaningful, not only for you, but for all sentient beings.
With much love and prayers ...
Compassion for the Animals
A student wrote that she lived on a farm where she tried to protect the animals and treat them with respect and love. She had abandoned butchering animals but sometimes found it necessary to kill small animals, such as intestinal worms, to save the lives of the larger animals. She also requested Rinpoche to be her guru.
My most dear, most kind, most precious. wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I’m very sorry, but I’m not a qualified teacher, as you think. I will check your questions, what is beneficial, so you try and I try.
You can do the practice of Medicine Buddha sadhana daily. It is very good doing the Medicine Buddha practice for the success of all our wishes for happiness, and also to help the sentient beings and to actualize the teachings of Buddha, and particularly to be able to benefit sentient beings, to free them from suffering and for them to achieve all the happiness up to enlightenment. It is so good to do this practice every day.
Practice lamrim with bodhicitta motivation. Even the training at the very beginning, correctly following the virtuous friend, should always begin with bodhicitta. Every lamrim meditation should be done with bodhicitta. Also living the life—eating, talking, sitting, doing our job—do it all with bodhicitta, as much as possible. There is a book about that called Bodhisattva Attitude, so if you can, read that.
However, not only in meditation, even living the life, doing the work, we should do everything with bodhicitta. That way all the actions of our body, speech and mind as much as possible become the cause of enlightenment. Our actions become most beneficial for every sentient being, for the numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, so that means numberless ants, not only in this universe but in numberless universes, for numberless chickens, goats, buffalos that people eat, numberless pigs, numberless slugs, numberless mosquitos, so every tiny insect, like that.
So for every sentient being—those living in the ocean, large like a mountain and the smallest that we can only see with microscope, all the worms living in the ground, every single insect, those living in the grass, on the trees, all the birds in the sky and so forth, numberless human beings in numberless universes, numberless suras, numberless asuras and numberless intermediate state beings—for the happiness of everyone. For them to be free from samsara, free from the oceans of sufferings and for them to achieve happiness, especially enlightenment.
Thank you very much.
Every day, if you can, try reciting OM MANI PADME HUM three thousand times. I would like to send you a mala if you can email back your postal address. Reciting OM MANI PADME HUM is incredibly good and it is a quick way to purify. It is an extremely powerful way to purify defilements and negative karma, the cause of the lower realms. It is so powerful for collecting extensive merits and even if we recite the mantra without bodhicitta we collect merits.
Reciting OM MANI PADME HUM even without bodhicitta, the benefit is more than the drops of water in the ocean, more than the number of sand grains in the Pacific Ocean, more the drops of rain that come when it rains. So, like that, there are unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable benefits.
If we recite OM MANI PADME HUM with bodhicitta even one time, we collect more than skies of merit. It is a quick way to be born in a pure land and it is a quick way to generate compassion for all sentient beings. This is the particular benefit, so that means it’s quicker to achieve enlightenment—the total cessation of obscurations and completion of realizations—buddhahood. It’s really fantastic.
I am hoping to produce a book soon with different prayers to Chenrezig so that students can use a different prayer each day when reciting OM MANI PADME HUM.
So, this is your main practice.
A zillion, trillion, numberless thanks from my heart for not butchering the animals. We can understand [their suffering] well if we put ourselves in the same situation as the animals being taken to be butchered, how we would feel. So we can understand from that situation, without thinking about the sufferings of the lower realms, what we are creating the cause to experience. [We can understand] the constant endless sufferings in samsara by thinking of the suffering of even that one animal.
I am sending you some Namgyalma mantras and you can also print out more. You can put them in your rooms and in the animals’ place, where they sleep or spend time. You can stick the mantra to the ceiling inside the room, with the mantra facing down toward the animals, so then the animals’ negative karma always gets purified and when they die they never get reborn in the lower realms.
I’m so happy that at least you have some feeling of compassion for the intestinal worms, because they are sentient beings living in the body of the other animals. There are some students and some very old friends who did not think well, so they keep pets and then feed their pets worms and live animals, such as mice, crickets, etc. They have attachment to the pets and no compassion at all for the insects that they are feeding to their pets. All the time they are feeding insects to the pets, even living insects, things like that, so they are always creating so much negative karma, so much negative karma, and also causing so much suffering for the other beings. The compassion that you have, the feeling of compassion for those intestinal worms and all the animals, I appreciate so much that you have compassion for them. Thank you very much.
What you have already done, giving medicine that killed the worms, I’m not giving particular advice to kill them, but you must do constant prayers for them. So recite the King of Prayers for them; for them to be like what the prayer says, for them to be like that. So every day if you can, recite that prayer in the evening time before going to bed or whenever it’s a suitable time for you. That’s very good, even by the way, for you to be born in the pure land. Of course it has that benefit, but here I am saying the main benefit is for others.
Thank you very much.
With much love and prayers ...
How to Help Cows and All Sentient Beings
Rinpoche sent this advice to a student whose young daughter was concerned about cows and how they were being harmed.
My very dear one,
Thank you very much for the news about your daughter. I am so happy to find out that she is very concerned about cows. They have to suffer so much. People use them for meat, as well as for milk and other things. So that means the mother suffers giving birth to the baby calf, and then it has to separate from the calf. There are so many different ways they get killed.
I just want to tell you one story. When I was in Singapore liberating animals the first time, there were three snakes bought the night before the liberation. The next morning, I reached for the reserved water and there were other animals, frogs and other things too.
Three snakes were in a sack and could have run away easily, but they were like intoxicated, maybe due to the heat, I’m not sure. They were fastened there in the sack. At that time I was wondering, if we let the snakes go, then the frogs and mice and many other animals would get eaten.
But if we did not buy the snakes to liberate them, their bodies, which are very long, would get cut in half and they would suffer so much. In the restaurants in China, Taiwan and Singapore they use snake for snake dishes.
So then, that made me think, what to do? There is no other method; the only way is for us to practice Dharma, to actualize the path, the four noble truths. First we must become free from the oceans of samsaric suffering. In that way we become free from samsara and sentient beings do not have to harm us. They don’t have to create negative karma with us, which is one big help.
By revealing Dharma to the sentient beings, they meet the Dharma, actualize the path and become free from the oceans of samsaric suffering. In that way sentient beings don’t have to suffer continuously, and they don’t have to create the cause to harm others. That is an incredible help, freeing them from suffering and the causes of suffering.
And the last thing, the biggest help, is to bring everyone to full enlightenment, sangye, the total elimination of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations.
So all the time we should engage our life in Dharma practice, particularly trying to actualize the path. That is the solution, for all the benefits to happen. Whether the concern is for cows, or, for example, tigers and so forth, this is my answer.
Please tell your daughter this. I suggest to her that by practicing morality and practicing purification with mantras and so forth, and by collecting extensive merits with many other practices, for life after life we don’t have to harm other sentient beings directly or indirectly. And also sentient beings don’t have to harm us, creating negative karma.
She can chant OM MANI PADME HUM and visualize beams are emitted from Chenrezig, purifying her and the sentient beings—the cows and any beings she is concerned about.
Also, she can recite Vajrasattva mantra. She can visualize Vajrasattva on her crown and at her heart on the moon disk on a lotus are the cows and all sentient beings. Think that they are purified with nectar beams emanating from Vajrasattva. She can do like this, so they can become free from suffering and the causes of suffering , and not only that, they all become enlightened.
Later she can become a nun. Think in this way: if we don’t create the cause to harm sentient beings then sentient beings don’t have to harm us.
With love and prayers ...
How to Help Animals Harmed by Gardening
This letter was written to a student who was working in the garden at a Dharma center and was concerned about the worms, insects and other animals harmed by planting the flowers. The student asked what they could do for the animals.
My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
How are you? I’m very sorry that for a long time I did not get to write to you. First of all, I am so happy you are there for me, Lama Yeshe, His Holiness and that you are there to serve the Buddhadharma and ultimately sentient beings, not leaving out even one ant or one maggot or fish or even one lice, and you are serving the people there and making everybody happy. You asked me a question when I was there, about what to do when you are working with flowers and the animals die.
You are right, when we look at flowers, they look so beautiful, and it’s like they exist from their own side, like they are real, in ordinary language. We don’t see that sentient beings suffer so much for that garden, so many sentient beings get killed for that. Only through so much suffering did it come to look so nice. It came from so much suffering, creating negative karma, killing, hot and cold, etc.
When I make offerings at the centers, to the guru, the buddhas, the deities—water offerings and other kinds of offerings—then the merits are dedicated for sentient beings. That is what we try to do, as much as we can.
If worms are cut or killed, you can pray like this: “Due to the past, present and future merits collected by me and the three times merits collected by countless buddhas and bodhisattvas, may this worm be free from the lower realm sufferings immediately and be reborn in the pure lands, where this sentient being can become enlightened quickly. Or at least, may it receive a perfect human rebirth, meet the Mahayana teachings and find a perfectly qualified Mahayana guru, revealing the unmistaken path to enlightenment.” If you pray like this, when you dedicate your own and all the buddhas’ and bodhisattvas’ merits, it becomes very powerful. It’s like when you collect one dollar from a trillion people, you get a trillion dollars, and then you get a lot of money to do big projects.
You can recite the Lotus Pinnacle of Amoghapasha mantra.
OM PADMO USHNISHA VIMALE HUM PHAT
Recite this a few times, then blow over the animal which was killed or injured. It’s very good to do that for worms which were killed or injured.
The other mantra is OM MANI PADME HUM. If you have done the blessing of the speech at the end of the Method to Transform, it’s like having recited tens of thousands or even tens of millions of mantras. It’s so helpful! Whether you have a commitment or not, if you recite these mantras every day it becomes so beneficial for yourself and sentient beings.
This is what I have been teaching and introducing in many centers: lamrim motivation, then blessing the speech and blessing the mala. The new title is The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment). It is not called Daily Meditation anymore, because I don’t want people to think, “I don’t need to do any more prayers because I have already done my daily meditation.” It is not to stop people from doing more prayers.
If possible, of course you put the animals back where they belong. And if possible, put them into the boxes, even the injured ones, and take them around the stupa. I have designed two boxes; one is called wisdom and one is called method. So if you have the insects inside the house, you can scoop them up and they go inside the boxes, underneath the Stainless Pinnacle mantra and then they will have already purified countless eons of negative karma. Also, on top of the box is the Namgyalma mantra. It’s called Liberation Box, Protection Tool for a Fortunate Rebirth.
Then you carry the insects around the stupa. This will purify unbelievable negative karma collected from beginningless lives and they will collect the cause for enlightenment each second. Inside the stupa are so many tsa tsas and holy objects, therefore going around the stupa we collect so many causes for enlightenment.
The other thing is, I have seen small stupas there at the center, inside the rooms. So you can take one of those outside when you work with the flowers and take the worms or insects at least around that, if it is difficult to go around the big stupa. You can do that many times, not only once. Do it a hundred, thirty or twenty times. Take them around the base, not on top of the stupa. And you can recite the short Namgyalma mantra:
OM BHRUM SVAHA OM AMRITA AYUR DADE SVAHA
After reciting this mantra, the breath is so blessed, then you must blow on the animals to purify their negative karma.
If a fully ordained monk breaks all four root vows—sexual intercourse, stealing valuable things belonging to others, killing a human being and lying about having realizations one does not have—then that monk is reborn in hell. But if someone were to recite this mantra for that monk who broke the four root vows and was born in hell, he would immediately be liberated and would be reborn in the higher rebirths. This mantra is so powerful.
Also, we can light incense, then recite the mantra and let the smoke get into our clothes. Then we go to the person who asked for our help, and our help will be successful—that is what is said. So it is a very powerful mantra with many benefits.
Of course, OM MANI PADME HUM is the most powerful one, purifying negative karma collected from beginning less lifetimes. Reciting it, even without bodhicitta, we collect more merits than there are drops of water in the ocean, or more than all the sand grains in the Pacific Ocean, and especially, we generate compassion toward all sentient beings. That is why my mother, even though she could not read the alphabet, had one hundred times more compassion than me, who can read the texts and talk about compassion! This mantra is the quickest way to be born in a pure land and achieve enlightenment.
Regarding the Namgyalma mantra, if we are wearing a Namgyalma mantra protection amulet, it always purifies us, so when we die, we don’t get reborn in the lower realms. If we have it in our house, then mosquitoes, dogs, cats, and even guests, although they don’t know, are purified. So everybody from the house does not get reborn in the lower realms. The sentient beings who are touched by the shadow of the house, even their negative karma and obscurations are purified.
If the mantra is on a mountain, anybody who climbs the mountain or touches the mountain, their negative karma gets purified and when they die they have a higher rebirth. If the mantra is in the car, it becomes a holy object and all the insects and so forth get purified. When we drive a car, so many sentient beings (insects etc.,) are killed, but if we have the Namgyalma mantra in the car, they get purified. Of course, if you see an animal, do not drive over it!
If you come across someone who dies, put the Namgyalma mantra on their body, even for a little while, then their negative karma and obscurations are purified and they get a higher rebirth. When you do your practice, such as reciting OM MANI PADME HUM and Medicine Buddha mantras, think of the worms who got killed, maybe write it down so that you don’t forget them, then dedicate for them, so that your practice is done with bodhicitta. Then dedicate for them to achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible and to never get reborn in the lower realms.
Thank you very much for everything.
With much love and prayers ...
Practices to Benefit a Cat
Rinpoche wrote this letter to a student with advice on how to care for a cat that was twenty-one years old and very sick. Rinpoche suggested various mantras and also advised circumambulation of holy objects with the cat.
My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
I heard you wanted very much to come here but you have a cat that is twenty-one years old and is very sick, so you couldn’t come. I understand, that’s very good taking care of the cat.
It’s good to recite Maitreya Buddha mantra in the cat’s ear. That causes the cat to never be reborn in the lower realms, to have a higher rebirth and to meet the Dharma. Also recite Medicine Buddha mantra, Chenrezig Buddha mantra, Milarepa Buddha mantra and Lotus Pinnacle of Amoghapasha mantra: OM PÄDMO USHNISHA VIMALE HUM PHAT. Recite these mantras several times each day. [You can find these mantras here: Powerful Mantras at the Time of Death.]
Also recite the Three Principal Aspects of the Path and different lamrim prayers. The most important thing is to take the cat around holy objects. If you can, make an altar on a table, and put many holy objects on the table, piled up—tsatsas, buddha statues, pictures and texts, then take the cat around, on the same level as the altar. Put pictures of buddhas, and statues and tsatsas, as many as possible, then go around that.
However many holy objects are there—one hundred or one thousand—each time the cat goes around the holy objects, it creates that many causes of enlightenment. It is good to have many tsatsas there and to take the cat around them as much as you can before he dies, otherwise there is nothing much you can do.
Here is a powa pill. When the cat dies, put it on his crown with butter and honey.
It is very kind of you to take care of this cat for twenty-one years. Perhaps the cat could also be a recent family member, for example, if your father or mother died, or sometimes it could be your wife from a past life. It could be anything.
Please continue to make your life most meaningful for every sentient being with bodhicitta. Thank you very much. I hope to see you soon.
With much love and prayers ...
Take Care of Animals with Compassion
A student wrote to Rinpoche after many gerbils had died unexpectedly. Rinpoche recommended Medicine Buddha and other practices, and advised caring for animals with unconditional love and compassion, not attachment.
My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you for your kind letter. You should do the Medicine Buddha retreat to purify your own negative karma and obscurations collected from beginningless rebirths, and not only that, but also for all the six realm sentient beings and in particular for all the animals in the animal realms. That includes any animals that have been killed or have died with you.
There is a text for the Medicine Buddha retreat, complete with a fire puja at the end. If you have received the great initiation of Medicine Buddha—not just the short blessing—you can do that. If you have not received the initiation, then you have to wait until you can receive it, or if you are able to, you can come to a place where I will do the Medicine Buddha great initiation. I am doing it soon in Malaysia, but I am not sure if you can go. If you are unable to come, then you can wait until I give it another time.
You can still recite the Medicine Buddha mantra now, to purify all the sentient beings’ negative karma and obscurations—particularly all those in the animal realm and any animal that has died with you—and also to purify your own negative karma.
Visualize the Medicine Buddha as a real, actual living Medicine Buddha, not just as a painting or statue, if that is what you are looking at. Visualize beams emitting like the sun shining to all the six realm sentient beings—especially to any animals that have died with you and also to yourself—purifying all the negative karma and obscurations collected since beginningless rebirth. Think that all those animals that died have purified all their negative karma and defilements, then recite the mantra.
As well as the short mantra, if you can, recite the long Medicine Buddha mantra. This is in the extensive Medicine Buddha puja called Wish-granting Sovereign. If you can, recite the longest mantra 100,000 times, sending light rays like the sun shining, as I explained above.
This is the longest mantra:
TADYATHA GHU ME GHU ME / I MI NI MI HI MA TI MA TI SAPTA TATHAGATA SA MA DHYA DHIGHITE / AH TE MA TE / PA LE PA PA SHODHANI / SARVA PAPAM NA SHA YA MA MA BUDDHA BUDDHOTTAME / U ME KU ME / BUDDHA KSHETRA PA SHODHANI DHA ME NI DHA ME / ME RU ME RU ME RU SHI GHARE / SARVVA AH KA LA MRITU / NI PARANI / BUDDHE SU BUDDHE BUDDHA ADHIKHTHANA / RAKHANTU ME / SARVVA DE WA SA ME AH SA ME SAMANTA HARANTU / SARVVA BUDDHA BODHISATTVA / SHAME SHAME PRASHAMANTU ME / SARVVA ITU PA DRA PRA BA DYA TA YA / PURANE PURANE PURAYAME / SARVA ASHAYA / BAIDURYA PRATI / BHA SE SARVVA PA PAKHA YADA RE SVAHA
Also, from time to time you can do the short Medicine Buddha puja, called The Wish-fulfilling Jewel, for the same reason.
Maybe you don’t know that Medicine Buddha is extremely powerful for success and even for you to achieve enlightenment, to be able to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment as quickly as possible. For that you need to be enlightened, therefore you need all the success for this purpose and then no question, you will achieve happiness and success in the next lives, and in this life it comes by the way.
I have some things to suggest to you on how to help the animals ultimately. [See Compassion Brings Us Closer to Enlightenment for these suggestions and further advice.]
Some people take care of animals because they are attached to one type of animal. It’s not that they have compassion for all animals, it’s not that; they just have a lot of attachment to one particular type. Then because of that attachment they help those animals with something which is needed, like giving food to help them and so forth. However, the most important thing is to take care of them with compassion, loving kindness and unconditional love, not with attachment. I hope you are doing that and if so, in that case, I appreciate it very much.
So I am representing all those animals and thanking you for taking care of us.
You have to take care of them according to how they need to be taken care of; sometimes people don’t know how to take care of them. For example, in the West to keep the dog small, so it won’t grow too big, some people give food only one time each day. Of course the dog gets used to it, but I don’t think it’s right. This is what people like to do, but it’s not comfortable for the dog, it’s not what the dog needs. In my view, at least give them food twice a day. I didn’t think it was right when I heard that dogs are not fed in order to keep their size small. Then it is like it’s forced; it’s not for the dog’s comfort.
Some people love to take care of a certain type of animal, and they have some kind of attachment to that type of animal. This means when they take care of those animals, it is from their own attachment, to fulfill their desire, attachment. This means they are actually working for themselves and the main aim is not the happiness of the animal.
Also, for instance, in some parts of the world, once they have a daughter, parents very much want their daughter to get married as quickly as possible, and they don’t even check the husband. They don’t know all the unbelievable suffering their daughter might have to go through after the marriage—so much suffering, having to suffer, not free, unbelievable, unbelievable suffering. The children also have unbelievable suffering. They don’t think about that; they just hurry up and make sure their daughter gets married, so that they can have grandchildren. That makes the parents happy, when their daughter is married and has a child. It makes the parents very happy. That is their main motivation, just for their own happiness, so that they will have grandchildren in their life. Then they can always talk about them, so it’s for their happiness, not for the happiness of their daughter. It is what the parents want, so it’s like that.
I did make prayers for all your animals, especially the ones who died.
Thank you very much.
With much love and prayers ...