Animal Liberation

My most dear one,
You need to liberate five thousand animals. Also take a long-life initiation and recite the Amitayus Long Life Sutra (Tse do) one thousand times. This sutra is most unbelievable purification and collects merit; the same merit as reading the Kangyur, the teachings of the Buddha. You should read it yourself and also your father should read it more, as it takes time. Other people can also help with the recitations. Six hundred can be done by the Kopan Lama Gyüpas. According to my observation, there are quite big obstacles to your life.

In Chinese towns, many insects—for example, five thousand insects—are sold to feed other bigger animals. You can buy thousands of insects very cheaply, very easily. For example, in Hong Kong, you can get one thousand crickets in half a bag; it’s not even a full bag. So then, with one thousand, for example, they can be taken around the holy relics, as I did one time on a hill outside, with a Chinese monk helping me. Incredible! The idea is to liberate animals, those in danger of death, of being eaten or killed, and causing their long life and freedom from danger. It causes their long life; it works like that. That result also happens for those who liberate the animals. 

The Chinese also liberate turtles and bring them to the monasteries’ ponds, but there is nothing there to benefit them once they are in the ponds. Many years ago in Taiwan, I made an animal liberation book, explaining how to make it most beneficial for them. The procedure to bless the animals and to benefit them is explained in Liberating Animals from the Danger of Death. 

First, you arrange pictures of the Buddha, many photos, texts, tsa tsas and statues. If there is one stupa, text or statue, then by going around that, you can purify the karma to be reborn in the lower realms, and you create the cause to become free from samsara, to attain lower nirvana and peerless happiness, enlightenment, in short, the cessation of mistakes and the accumulation of realizations. That is what is needed. 

If there are one hundred holy objects, then the insects taken around and the people taking them around get one hundred times the benefit. It purifies [the karma for] a lower realm rebirth, frees us from samsara and takes us to full enlightenment. We receive one hundred times the benefit by going around one hundred holy objects.

If there are one million holy objects, by having many [buddhas] in one picture or having one thousand pictures on the table and then taking the animals around that, it becomes the cause of enlightenment. These results are created. It goes on. It’s incredible, incredible, incredible! The impossible happens. For the many thousands of crickets, etc., it causes enlightenment so many times. 

When taking them around, don't carry the beings above the images. Carry them around on the same level. Really, it's an incredible service to sentient beings. We are creating the causes for them to be reborn human and to become enlightened. Can you imagine?

I'm not sure if you can do this in your country, but it’s possible to do this in Singapore and other places, plus it is cheap to do it. If you liberate a big animal, like a goat, you also need a place to keep it. 

Before, at the bottom of Kopan hill, I saved goats from slaughter several times. Each goat cost several thousand rupees. At that time, the driver from the nunnery asked the seller not to kill the goats but he said because of this business he was able to build a house. The driver didn't answer. He remained silent because he didn't have any logic against the seller. Also, the man sold the meat to several restaurants around. The man’s wife contracted cancer and after one year she died. I didn't hear about his experience, but he stopped killing. When I asked him why he had stopped, he answered that he had heard advice from me. Maybe I did say something or maybe he saw so much of his wife’s suffering and connected that to the goats.

In Washington State, there are monks who liberate animals once a week, mostly fishing worms, in quite some number. Also, at the Aptos house the nuns there do it once a week.

Last time I was in Kathmandu, I saw some goats in an empty house waiting to be killed. They were so alert. Next minute, they don't know what will happen. Imagine how you would feel if you were in a room waiting to be killed at any moment. When [people] are punished by the courts through a legal case, this can go in the news, with demonstrations and shouting. But animals are under the power of humans; they can't do anything. It's so sad.

The most difficult [rescued animals] to take care of are chickens. If you put them on the ground, they will look for worms to eat. They need to be kept somewhere with a concrete floor and given food like grains and so forth. I'm thinking to do one project, to buy land and build a house with the ceiling covered with Namgyalma mantras, then whoever dies under that roof will attain a higher rebirth and purify negativities. Also, to have OM PÄDMO USHNISHA VIMALE HUM PHAT, the Lotus Pinnacle of Amoghapasha mantra, all over [the room]. As well, to have mantras playing through a speaker system, those mantras and prayers which purify negativities and bring us to liberation and enlightenment through getting a higher rebirth. I've had this plan for a long time.

Here at the Kopan Animal Liberation Sanctuary, there are stupas for the goats, mantras and prayer wheels to purify eons of negative karma, and mantras to put on their bodies. I hope they do that. It is so good to help animals, as we can see them. Thank you so much.

As well as liberating the animals, this also helps people who are in danger of committing suicide or, like animals, are in danger of being killed or of falling down. These people can also be saved.

With love and prayers ...

My most dear, most precious, most kind, wish-fulfilling one,
Whatever you’re doing is excellent. Of course, by liberating the fish, that saves them from being killed and helps whoever has life obstacles or sickness. It helps that person get better and of course, it becomes virtue and prevents the fish from being killed. Of course, the fish have to go back in the water and there’s no [body of] water with only one kind of fish inside. I think the water is full of their enemies which will eat them, even though we liberate them from being killed.

Goats can be more expensive and you need someone to look after them, but in this way you can buy and take care of them.

In Tibet, people buy yaks and put them on the mountain and offer to the protectors, Palden Lhamo and so forth. These yaks become so big and so pompous. I saw them on the mountain, where they are offered to the Dharma protectors, not just to the suffering spirits.

Geshe Tsewang Dorje built a monastery and a big statue of Buddha in Ladakh. He invited me to Ladakh and I was supposed to come there but the lockdown due to the COVID19 virus disease happened, so I couldn’t come. If this lockdown ceases, I’m supposed to go to Ladakh, because I have big projects there.

Geshe Tsewang Dorje told me that there was a family in Ladakh with fifty cows which were old. They thought other families would help them, but no one helped them. So I said he doesn’t have to wait for me to come to Ladakh. The monks from Geshe Tsewang Dorje’s monastery can build a better place for the animals, with eight stupas for them to go around and purify their negative karma and achieve enlightenment, not only to be free from samsara. The animals can go around the stupas a few times every day. Then the monks can look after more animals. [Read more about the animal sanctuary in Ladakh here.]

I also want to help the poor people by giving them food and other things, and also by explaining Dharma, how to live their life. Not only reciting prayers, but explaining Dharma to them.

I was requested to rebuild one hundred stupas, which I think were destroyed a long time ago. They were built by Lotsawa Rinchen Zangpo, probably hundreds of years ago.

My plan is to rebuild these stupas, bigger than what was originally built there, so people can go around them and purify so much negative karma. It’s also a quick way to achieve enlightenment with bodhicitta motivation. Anyway, these are the ideas of what I want to do in Ladakh.

It’s excellent that you are reading the Golden Light Sutra. This is incredible, incredible purification, and benefits the world unbelievably, bringing peace and happiness. You can also read the sutra for all the people who have died from the COVID19 virus in China, America, India, Nepal, everywhere. Also dedicate for those who are dying or sick. You can dedicate for everybody in the whole world and for all the six-realm sentient beings to be free from samsara and to achieve enlightenment quickly. Other people who read the Golden Light Sutra can also dedicate for your father.

According to my observation, you should make tsa tsas of rig sum gon po [the Three Saviors]—Manjushri, Chenrezig, Vajrapani—these three deities on one mold. There is a big tsa tsa, maybe from Taiwan, I’m not sure. Before they built it, they made a big tsa tsa of the three long-life deities, Namgyalma, Amitayus and White Tara. It’s very beautiful. I’m not sure if there is a mold of rig sum gon po. If it’s not there, you can ask them to make a very nice one.

So you should make three tsa tsas, the same size as the tsa tsa of the three long-life deities that they have made, which is between two and three feet high. They made a very beautiful one, very nice. You should make three tsa tsas of the rig sum gon po and each of these should be about two to three feet high.

There were two girls in Ladakh that I met some years ago. I met them a few times and had some occasional correspondence with them. My question is, are you are one of those girls?

When you liberate animals who will be killed because they are bought for food and so you have to rescue them, it’s very important to take them around statues, stupas or any holy objects. If you can’t take them around the gompa or around a stupa that’s already built, you can put the holy objects outside on a table which is covered nicely with cloth, with offerings around. You can put any statues, tsa tsas and stupas there and then take the animals around the holy objects. It’s most important for them.

If there are one hundred statues, stupas, tsa tsas or pictures, whatever is on the table, then if you take an animal around one time, that animal creates the cause of enlightenment one hundred times. That means if you have a thousand crickets in a plastic bag, you can liberate them all. There are people, sometimes Chinese, who keep pets, like snakes, that eat insects and different animals. These insects are sold in the market, so you can liberate them.

One time, I was carrying Buddha’s relic and I took one thousand crickets in a plastic bag around the mountain. By taking one thousand of them around the hill, they created the cause of enlightenment. It’s unbelievably, incredibly beneficial for them, not only freeing them from samsara, but bringing them to enlightenment. You can liberate worms and insects; it doesn’t have to be only fish.

Even though we put fish in the water, other fish will kill them, but we can first take them around as many holy objects as we can, so they create some virtue and purify the cause of being born in the lower realms. They purify the cause of being reborn in samsara and they create the causes of enlightenment so many times. This is the best thing.

The second thing you can do for the animals is recite mantras, such as Medicine Buddha mantra or OM MANI PADME HUM, and then blow on the water. You can blow on a bucket of water and then sprinkle that water over the fish or any other animals. If there are birds, you can sprinkle the water on them.

The third thing is to recite mantras and if the animals hear that sound, it plants the seed of enlightenment and they go to enlightenment.

There are these three benefits, but the best one is if you can take the animals around holy objects.

In Ladakh, if there’s someone making tsa tsas for people who have died and so forth, you can get many tsa tsas from there and place them on a table in a nice way. You can buy as many as possible and place them there nicely, and then take the animals around the tsa tsas.

In this way the animals help the people to become free from samsara and become enlightened. People think they are helping the animals, but the animals are helping the people too. We have to help each other, so this is a very good practice.

We received happiness from beginningless rebirths and also in the future, up to enlightenment, from each sentient being—each hell being, each hungry ghost, each animal, each human, each sura, each asura and each intermediate state being—and from Buddha, Dharma, Sangha.

They are so precious, they have been our mother from beginningless rebirths and they have suffered unbelievably, creating so much negative karma for us, giving us happiness, a long life, education, all those things. They have suffered so much for us and created so much negative karma for us. They have been suffering from beginningless rebirths for us.

Also, they don’t know Dharma and even if they wish for happiness, with ignorance they destroy the cause of happiness, virtue, by getting angry. No matter how much they do not like suffering, they run day and night to create the cause of suffering.

When I look at mothers, I see how the children bother their parents day and night, and they don’t get any peace, because the children want this or want that. They cry, because one child wants this and another wants that. If I’m at an airport watching a family with demanding children, I get tired after five minutes of watching them and I get bored. We have been born numberless times to them and we behaved like that, therefore they have suffered so much. It’s so worthwhile to help them.

I hope you have my book, Liberating Animals. If you don’t have it, you can ask Holly, my secretary. She can help you with anything you need, books and so forth. Ask Holly and she can guide you.

Generally, when you dedicate, after reciting OM MANI PADME HUM, Vajrasattva, the King of Prayers or anything else, dedicate the merit for your father to be free from the lower realms immediately and to be reborn in a pure land where he can become enlightened, or at least to be born with a perfect human body, meet the Mahayana teachings and meet a perfectly qualified Mahayana guru revealing the unmistaken path to enlightenment. By pleasing most the holy mind of the virtuous friend, may he achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible.

OK, that’s all.

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear, most kind most precious, most wish-fulfilling ones,
As you know, Ani-la has been offering water bowls in my rooms for many years and taking care of the rooms for many years. We talked about Kopan Monastery buying more land for the animals, bigger than what we have now, much bigger land.

I did buy land in Chailsa [a village in Solu Khumbu, Nepal] to liberate animals, as we need much more space. Kopan land is not big enough. However there it is filled with forest and also we have a school. There is also a plan for extending the school and providing board, things like that. So there are other plans.

So Kopan has been looking for a bigger place, I think for a few years now, so always something is good, but something is not there, whether it is water or something else. It is always like this.

We found big land for liberating animals near Tatopani, so the idea is to move the goats from here up to there, and we can buy new animals. It is a large area of land and I want to buy that. Please don’t worry about the money for this. You have projects in Australia like the sky, so many, to help animals. So please don’t worry. I’m not giving the burden to you.

One Kopan monk’s brother has unbelievable compassion, like a bodhisattva, for the goats here. Even when he is at the market he is concerned about the goats, whether they have food or not, so he has to come see them, like that. I hope he was also trained by you people. I think he is an excellent person to look after the goats. Really, he has concern. I praised him a lot. I didn’t know him before, but when I met him and heard about him, I told the monks here.

The monks memorize texts and learn philosophy and the very deep vast subjects, the Buddhist path—the basis, the two truths, and the path, method and wisdom, and the goal to be actualized, dharmakaya and rupakaya, the Buddha’s holy mind and holy body, to be able to do perfect work for sentient beings.

They memorize so many texts, learn so many texts, but actually they are supposed to learn in order to get experience of the path, to develop compassion, for example, toward every single sentient being—for every hell being, hungry ghost, animal, human, sura and asura, and bardo being. So that is the aim.

This monk who is caring for the goats has unbelievable compassion for the goats. Even though he has no chance to study Buddhist philosophy, the extensive teachings or even lamrim, he has the experience of compassion, for the goats at least. I praised him a lot.

I also heard you were extremely busy during the months of the fires, arriving here and there for the animals.

These cards are from the animals here, the goats, and from the animals in Australia, thanking you so much, a zillion, billion, trillion times for your hard work and for dedicating your life for them.

Buddha said in the Arya Sanghata Sutra:

Any sentient being, who during the time of my teachings
Makes charity well (even if it’s just the size of a hair)
For 84,000 eons will actually receive the result of great enjoyments:
Having the human body without disease, enjoyment of happiness,
Enriched with wealth, power and desirable things (like Indra, Brahma and so forth).
At the end you can achieve the peerless result—total cessation and actualization of enlightenment.

If we can get this great result, who doesn’t want to collect merit? So that is the benefit.

What you accomplished in Kopan for the goats, and also you dedicated your lives to the animals, a zillion trillion times you collected merit. For so many animals you dedicated your life, so the result you achieve is all this, what the Buddha said.

I am also sending a few Namgyalma protections, to place on the animals’ bodies when they are about to die or when their breath stops.

With much love and prayers ...

The general motivation, first is bodhicitta, that has to be there. Think,

“The purpose of my life and the purpose of liberating animals is not just to achieve happiness for myself, and it’s not even to achieve liberation from samsara, the blissful state of peace, for myself. The purpose is to free the numberless sentient beings—the numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless suras, numberless asuras and numberless intermediate state beings in the numberless universes—to free all of them from the oceans of samsara’s sufferings, by being free from delusion and karma. Then, next is to bring everyone to enlightenment, the total cessation of obscurations and completion of realizations, by myself alone.

“Even though there are numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas helping every sentient being, I have to repay the kindness of sentient beings. I should take full responsibility for their past, present and future happiness, including enlightenment, because everything I have received is due to the kindness of every hell being, every hungry ghost, every animal, every human being, every sura, every asura and every intermediate state being."

You can elaborate from here on their kindness; how much you want to express, you can elaborate.

“To do this perfectly, without the slightest mistake, I must achieve full enlightenment, therefore I am liberating these animals from the oceans of suffering of samsara and in particular from the most unbearable suffering of the lower realms.”

This is the general motivation. Of course, your motivation can always be elaborated according to the lamrim and according to whatever you want.
 
Now first, who to liberate animals for? When we save the lives of animals, first is His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who is the supreme leader of all the sentient beings, the numberless sentient beings of the six realms, including us, every sentient being, where all our happiness comes from.

Think, “May His Holiness have a stable life and may all his holy wishes succeed immediately.”

Also, dedicate for:

• All the other holy beings, who are here to benefit sentient beings.
• The teachings of the Buddha to last a long time.
• The Sangha, who preserve the Dharma and spread the Dharma.
• Sentient beings to have a long life and success in their Dharma practice.
• The benefactors, who serve the teachings of Buddha and the Sangha. For the benefactors to have a long life and also to have success in offering service to the teachings of the Buddha and to the Sangha.
• All the sentient beings who do good things for others.
• All the evil beings to meet the Dharma and understand and accept reincarnation and karma, and for them to abandon the cause of suffering, negative karma, and to practice holy Dharma, which is the cause of happiness, and to have a long life.

So this is the motivation. Of course, dedicate for the specific people who are sick or who have life obstacles, for them to have a long life.

I understand your concerns. However, my main concern is not merely liberating the birds from the cage. [Rinpoche knows they will be caught again] It is to be able to circumambulate with the birds around holy objects, to recite mantras and bless them in other ways so that they are given great benefits for the future, ultimate benefit. Here they make a connection to Dharma and can eventually be freed from samsara.

That is why I always give instructions on what to recite for animals and how to circumambulate holy objects and do different things for them, so they get the long-term benefit in the future of connecting with Dharma, good rebirths and enlightenment.

This is my long-term benefit for the animals that I buy.

My very dear Eric,
It is amazing, great, that you liberated this many animals. Causing long life to others causes long life to you, as well as dedicating for the gurus. Please continue to make your life most meaningful with the thought of bodhicitta.

With much love and prayers...