Offering Service

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,

Thank you very much for your kind email, I was very happy to receive it.

In regard to your request about which deity you have the strongest connection with, the purpose of practicing Highest Yoga Tantra is to achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible in order to liberate sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment in the shortest possible time. When your mind is ready, take the initiations when available and train your mind in the practice of the generation stage.

The reason to take Highest Yoga Tantra initiations and do the practice is that this is the quickest way to achieve enlightenment in this life for yourself, and then to be able to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment the quickest.

According to my observation the deities that you have strongest connection with are Guhyasamaja, Kalachakra and Chenrezig Gyalwa Gyatso. Whichever one you have strongest feeling toward is your main deity, but you can take both initiations and do both retreats if you want. You can choose one to be oneness with day and night to quickly achieve enlightenment, to enlighten sentient beings, to free the numberless sentient beings from the numberless oceans of samsaric sufferings and to bring them to buddhahood

Because of your Dharma connection, you worked in the office, so this means you worked for me, also for His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Lama Yeshe. Therefore your work for the last ten years, whatever you have done has been the greatest purification and it becomes the greatest, biggest way to collect the most extensive merits. That is such a quick way to achieve enlightenment. You should know this and rejoice in every second.

It is said in the Essence of Ksitigarbha Sutra:

Working for guru is to achieve enlightenment.

I am sorry I don’t remember the quotation completely clearly, but this is essence.

Then as Sakya Pandita said:

The merit you collect by making charity of your limbs for a thousand eons, giving away your head, legs and so forth, and even dedicating that merit to sentient beings, can all be achieved in one second by the guru’s path.

Sakya Pandita also said:

As fire burns wood and turns it into ashes in one second, like that if the glorified guru is pleased, the negative karmas are burned in one second.

Thank you very much. Thank you for the practice you have done and are doing. Please remember what makes your life most meaningful is meditation on the lamrim, and living your life with bodhicitta motivation. This is the best.

With much love and prayers ...

My dear one,
I have been thinking to give you my comments. The very first thing is your motivation for inviting this lama to teach at the center.

You need to clean your motivation; I think you have a big ego regarding this. Your ego seems big, so huge. This is how I feel. You need to totally change and clean this. Your thinking to have so many people attend is not realistic.

Yes, it is good that the lama teaches lamrim. He will show us the training in the path, for Westerners especially, not only the three principal aspects of the path. Anyway his life will be teaching, so it is good, and of course he doesn’t need training; he is just showing us the outside aspect.

You should be happy no matter how many people come to the event. Otherwise, you will get into so many problems with others because of ego, so much garbage. Your motivation has to be pure. This is very important for you and all sentient beings.

For this lama to teach the Lamrim Chenmo is of course most important. It is the most important teaching within the Gelug tradition.

This is what I really need to tell you, to express to you.

One other thing: the bathroom that was used by His Holiness the Dalai Lama is now being used by the geshes. I thought about this when I went to do pipi. I felt so, so uncomfortable. The bathroom is being used by the geshes after His Holiness the Dalai Lama used it. That doesn’t look right.

I’m telling you what I think so that you don’t torture yourself with the wrong motivation. This is what I think.

With much love and prayer ...

My very dear, most precious, most kind, wish-fulfilling one,

Here is short message to thank you for the kind letter you sent to me. This is my reply.

You are my wish-granting jewel, fulfilling sentient beings’ needs and happiness and outwardly freeing them from the suffering of samsara and bringing them to enlightenment, and I want to have you in the FPMT all the time. At the moment you are needed so much there, but in the future [you] can be in different places in FPMT, so until I die please be in the FPMT.

Continue to study Dharma with Geshe-la. This is the most important thing to develop your Dharma wisdom and your compassion. You have a great geshe there, a great teacher, so it’s very good to learn from Geshe-la and take him as guru.

Study the commentary on Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life with Geshe-la. Read the text yourself and ask Geshe-la anything you don’t understand. Even if you don’t happen to get the commentary from Geshe-la, maybe you can make a program and get the lung, the oral transmission, as well as the commentary.

However, you should study the Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life and the commentary, then you will have more wisdom and compassion.

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear one,
Regarding karma yoga, you have to think that this practice purifies your negative karma collected from beginningless rebirths and is the means to collect extensive merits. [You collect] extensive merits of virtue and extensive merits of transcendental wisdom.

You can do karma yoga while meditating on emptiness. While you are working look at everything as merely labeled by the mind. Look at yourself, action, object, whatever appears as real or truly existent due to ignorance—look at that as an illusion, a hallucination, as it is a hallucination. Look at it like a dream, like a mirage and so forth. In that way you collect the merit of virtue and the merit of transcendental wisdom. From the merit of transcendental wisdom you create the cause of dharmakaya and the merit of virtue becomes the cause of rupakaya.

Also, think that this is the place of His Holiness the Dalai Lama or think [it is] my place, because of our Dharma connection. If you think like that while cleaning the place or whatever you are doing, then it becomes guru yoga practice. Thus, all your karma yoga becomes guru yoga practice, cleaning your mind of all negative karma and obscurations. It also cleans your body, so you can be healthy and not experience heavy sickness or heavy obstacles. In that way it can also help.

Then think that this is a place for sentient beings to practice Dharma in order to achieve enlightenment.

So please think about this.

In regard to future study, you can decide yourself after you finish this module. You can decide whether to continue. It’s good to study, it’s great, but it’s up to you to decide. If you really want to stop you can do that, but study is important.

With much love and prayers ...

Most dear, most precious, most kind, most wish-fulfilling one,
I understand your prayer. If you do this [prayer] also to Medicine Buddha and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Chenrezig and Tara and so forth, that is very good.

At the moment, I don’t have anything in particular to tell you. Just continue helping the center as you have been doing. That is very good. If something new comes, I will let you know.

With much love and prayer...

PS. Please tell the director and staff, thanks for looking after you as an ordained Sangha person. That happens due to understanding the Buddha’s teachings.

My very dear one,
A billion, zillion, trillion times numberless thanks to you for working with your body, speech, and mind at the center for fifteen years.

The purpose of the center’s existence is for the teachings of Buddha. And the teachings of Buddha are for the happiness of sentient beings—to free them from oceans of samsaric suffering, to free them from the six realms and to bring them to peerless happiness, the complete cessation of obscurations and complete realization. You should recognize your service is like limitless skies of benefit. What you are working for are the teachings of Buddha—the Lesser Vehicle teachings, the Greater Vehicle teachings, sutra and tantra, the path of the Buddhadharma—that benefit sentient beings: numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts and animals; numberless sentient beings in the ocean and in the mountains; some we can’t see with our eyes; some we have to see through a machine; some that live in the ground; tiny insects walking in the grass, running everywhere in the grass; beings in the bushes and in the sky. You are benefiting every mosquito, every ant, every tick, every maggot, and so forth; numberless human beings; numberless suras, asuras and intermediate state beings. And there are numberless universes, not only this one. You are benefiting all those different sentient beings.

In the morning when you come to work, think this: “I am going to work for all sentient beings, to free them from oceans of samsaric suffering and to bring them to peerless happiness.” That’s the motivation all day long for body, speech, and mind—it doesn’t matter what you do. Of course, because you have received teachings from little me, Mickey Mouse, we have the connection of Dharma and the relationship of guru and disciple.

It is said in the root Kalachakra tantra that even if in all past, present, and future eons, at all times, you make offerings to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, even saving ten million creatures’ lives from being killed, you won’t achieve enlightenment in this life. But, by pleasing with devotion a guru who has an ocean of knowledge, then you can achieve common and sublime realizations, including enlightenment, in this life. That’s what you are doing!

Another quotation from the tantra of Yeshe Gyatso (Ocean of Wisdom Tantra) says that the person who is wise in activities and service to the guru, that fortunate being has a more meaningful life than having done prostrations to the ten directions’ buddhas (that means numberless buddhas), for ten million eons and 600 thousand eons. If one fulfills all the advice given by the guru, then all one’s wishes get fulfilled, and one achieves unfathomable limitless merit and good luck.

Sakya Pandita, one of the five great Sakya lamas, from where the Sakya lineage comes, said that even the merit collected from thousands of eons of making charity to others with your head, legs, and hands, even the merit collected from that, is not as much as the merit collected in one second on the path of the guru, which means fulfilling the guru’s wishes, following the guru’s instructions, and giving service to the guru. Each second you do that you are able to collect extensive merit. What you would have collected over thousands of eons, here, you collect in one second. That means every year, every month, week, day, hour, minute, and second that you are doing things for me, following my wishes and advice, you are not only collecting that much merit and good luck, you free yourself quickly from oceans of samsaric suffering. Every second you become closer to enlightenment, to buddhahood. This is such a quick way to achieve enlightenment. You should remember this every day with the work of your body, speech, and mind. Therefore, every day and every night, you should enjoy your life and how you’re making your life most great. Remember this especially when you are going to die.

The extremely learned actualized holy being Mig Pemba said that if one thinks the Buddha is in front of oneself, the Buddha abides in front of oneself, and the Buddha always blesses the mind of oneself and liberates it from all the mistakes—not only suffering and negative karma, but all the delusions and obscurations. That means for the disciple who thinks the guru is Buddha, then Buddha is always in front of that person, and the benefit that person receives is total cessation of all obscurations and total and complete realization.

Nagarjuna, like a second buddha, spread the Buddha’s teachings. He abandoned all the offerings to Buddha, but attended perfectly and made offering perfectly to the guru. Service with one’s body, speech, and mind, fulfilling the wishes and advice of the guru, this is how to make the most of one’s life. I don’t know how many years, months, weeks, hours, minutes, seconds you have, but life is very short. And you are making the best use of it, not only for yourself, but for all sentient beings. So I’m truly expressing my heart to you.

Thank you very much again a billion, zillion times. I heard from Geshe-la how you worked so perfectly and successfully. You can enjoy this up to enlightenment and even after enlightenment. When you see an insect, you should think what benefit you are giving it.

With much love and prayers...