Eliminating Life Obstacles

My very dear Connor,
I was recently checking for one student and your name came up. Anyway, I checked and this year it seems there is some obstacle for you.

It came out for you to liberate 300 animals who are in the danger to be killed. It can be fish or some small animals and some big ones. If you don’t have much money, then you can also buy crickets or worms. In one plastic bag, there can be up to 1,000 crickets or worms, so you can do like that and include some bigger animals who are going to be killed if possible. If you can liberate 1,000 animals, this is best. You can buy them from a pet shop that uses them to feed to other animals, like snakes and so forth. That is one easy way to save many animals quickly.

Please make sure the motivation when doing the practice is not just for your long life, but for the long life of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the long life of all the holy beings, the long life of all the Sangha who spread the Dharma teachings, so that Dharma can last a long time and for the long life of all the students who do good things, for all those who recite OM MANI PADME HUM and for all those who are doing good in this world for other people, for those who are living in morality and so forth. By dedicating to everyone’s long life, you collect most unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable merits.

It also came out for you to read the Amitayus Long Life Sutra 70 times. This is also great for purification. Then it also came out for you to take a long-life initiation—as soon as you can would be best.

With much love and prayers... 

1) Chi lu puja (betraying the death).You can ask Geshe Ngawang Drakpa to do this.

2) Paint the Boudha and Swayambhunath stupa. This also entails offering umbrellas and banners to the stupas. [Note: This is something that Rinpoche does every month ; it costs about $350 to do this offering. Kopan Monastery takes care of this, but it can be arranged for you, or you are welcome to do it.]

3) The whole Prajnaparamita needs to be read. This takes about seven days. The Gyume monks in Dharamsala come out best to do this for you, so for this you can email the director of Tushita Centre and ask her to arrange it. Ask for the cost first and also work out the food offering and the offering to each monk. The director of Tushita can give you some guidance about this; she may know what is normal.

4) It is most important for you to do White Heruka practice every day in the early morning, for the next four months.

You need to do more purification practice and collect merit; it seems there is something heavy. Also do tonglen more, as well as practicing the five powers in your life as well as at death time. [Find links to the booklet Practicing the Five Powers Near the Time of Death in the FPMT Catalogue.] Pay attention to this practice and study it more. It is good to make preparation, anyway. With the world situation now and all the disasters, it is more possible to die than to live, so it is wise to think like this, to prepare for death now and not to think that you will live forever.

• Liberate 100 animals
• Recite the Diamond Cutter Sutra eleven times
• The puja lü-dang-sadag-gi-don-drol [Liberating from the harm of the naga and landlord] needs to be done
• Pacifying fire puja and controlling fire puja

Regarding your situation, it looks like about six months from now there will be some obstacles, but they appear lighter than before. What needs to be done is:

1) White Umbrella deity torma called Torkya—a very large torma is made, there is a puja, and it is thrown into the fire. This could be done at Kopan.

When this is done, it can be dedicated to your situation, as well as also to the organization (Maitreya Project and FPMT), so it makes it more beneficial. The main thing is that it’s for you personally.

2) As well as this, it is important for you to recite Black Manjrushri mantra.

3) Do the short practice of Amitayus. The main thing is to recite the long mantra, whatever you can manage, each day.

Regarding the operation for your son, it looks bad to do the operation, but it also looks bad not to do it, which means there is an obstacle. Something has to be done first.

One thing that should be done straight away is the liberation of 20,000 animals.

Generally, for some reason, his situation looks difficult. Of course, you want to help him as much as possible, so I think the best thing is to leave good imprints on his mind as much as you can. If he can recite mantras or hear mantras or sutras, awhatever you can manage, that leaves good imprints, and this is very important for him for the future. Also, if he can read the Heart Sutra and listen to it, and also read or hear short lamrim prayers, or you could read them with him each day, this would be excellent.

Another thing that will really help is special blessed water from places like Maratika or Mount Kailash. If he can sip a little bit of this blessed water, it will help.

I received the letter from your students, asking for you to stay in the area. I read it all. Then I checked for quite a long time. It seems that you may have some life obstacles in the near future, so I checked what was best for you to do to overcome these:

1. Take a long-life initiation.
2. Liberate 500 animals – according to my method (taking them around holy objects). This is something your students could do with you.
3. Do Tendrel Chi-lu 500 times. This is the practice of betraying death by reciting the King of Prayers.
4. Practice White Heruka each day.
5. Recite the Sanghata Sutra 60 times.
6. Recite the Diamond Cutter Sutra five times.
7. Print 80 long-life sutras (I can send it to you if you don’t have it.)
8. You need to have the Gyanag Kok tok recited 400 times. This is a text to recite when it is your obstacle year.

Regarding teaching at the center and around the town, this came out as very good.

I have checked, and there will also be obstacles next year. The following are the pujas that should be performed. The most beneficial thing for you to do to eliminate these obstacles and health issues for now and next year is reciting the Arya Manjushri Sangita Sutra as much as you can.

Then, you need to have the recitation of the Prajnaparamita (all three versions) performed. You can request this to be done by Kopan Monastery or Bati Khamtsen.

Also, you should do White Heruka long-life practice regularly.

Then, have Namgyal Tsechog performed, also by either Kopan or Bati Khamtsen.

Next year you need to take a long-life initiation. Lama Tsongkhapa is the best.

The pujas can pacify the very, very bad year ahead. For the price of 100 momos I will make a phone call to Yama to sort out the mess. I will explain to Yama your wish to benefit others and become enlightened.