Requesting Ordination

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you for your letter and also for the sutras you have written out.

Regarding your request for ordination, I checked, and after five years it is very good for you to take ordination. If you still feel this way, then you can become monk. The way you explained, it seems you have the conditions to become a monk, but I don’t know what would happen to your family if you were to become a monk now. Would it affect them or not? Would your wife freak out or your children? Particularly your wife—maybe she has to become a nun first and start in that way. (I am just joking.)

It’s very important for you to do the daily motivation, The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment). It is very important to do this.

It’s excellent what you have been doing—reciting the different mantras and practices that I told you about. That is great; a great benefit to the whole world, as you motivated for that. Thank you very much. I want to say thank you very much for all the practices you have done for sentient beings.

Yes, reality is like that, as you mention.

One thing I have noticed is that some Indian people spend the most money when their daughter gets married. If it is a poor person, for instance the Root Institute gardener— he died a long time ago, but before he died he told me he had to raise 100,000 rupees in order for his daughter to get married. That is a lot of money for such a poor family to get and trying to get the money was totally destroying him.

I spoke to the children and staff at Maitri Charitable Trust project and also at the Maitreya School. I thought to mention to people to try to change this custom which is torturing the poor people in India and also in Nepal, where they do the same thing. If just some people can start to change this custom, it would be of great benefit.

My brother’s daughter had to give a silver mandala offering and a whole altar carved from wood to the man she was going to marry. This was not at all thinking about her and was only thinking of the other family. Anyway, later they changed; she didn’t like him and now she has a second husband, who she married in Seattle.

This custom is also in Nepal, where it’s the same as India. Sorry, this is just a side talk.

What happens, marriage is one thing, enjoying the view of the worldly mind, but at the end, still there is death. I think it's all so much suffering and creating the cause of suffering again, so the way you are thinking is right. Usually each individual has a lot of attachment, usually in the world. Generally it is to sex, but then individuals have different attachments. They don't know that from beginningless rebirth we have had sex with every sentient being and there is no one that we have not had sex with.

If we don't practice Dharma, if we don't realize the four noble truths, then we will have to experience the sufferings of the six realms again, endlessly. Even people in the world with high degrees, scientists, etc., don't know about that. Sorry, I can't say everybody, but generally people don’t know. They think this is the first time and this thing is the greatest pleasure, then from that attachment, suffering and samsara become endless. People in the world have so much suffering and their mind is obscured until they meet Dharma and meditate well. Otherwise they do not understand.

Thank you! You are correct and meanwhile there are eight Mahayana precepts that you have been taking. That is extremely good, as it is done with bodhicitta. It's a really unbelievable practice that you can do and it benefits all sentient beings in this world and this country. It's really, really good, so please take them as much as you can, it's fantastic!

Please continue to meditate on the lamrim, based on guru yoga. On this basis you will get all the realizations and the most success in your life. It is important to try to achieve all the realizations in order to actualize enlightenment; in order to liberate numberless sentient beings and enlighten them. That’s the real project, the real goal of our life.

Please practice as much as you can. Life is not long, the nature of this life is impermanent and death can happen at any time. This is the foundation of the Buddha’s teachings and it was the last advice the Buddha gave before showing the aspect of passing away.

What makes your life most meaningful is meditation on the lamrim and to live your life with bodhicitta motivation. This is the best.

With much love and prayers ...

My dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I am very happy that you got better, that is very good. The purpose of taking care of your health, of getting better, is particularly to practice Dharma, especially bodhicitta, and then to be a nun.

If you become a nun that is very, very good. Don’t think it’s a hard life. That is totally wrong. Those who don’t think much about karma and who don’t think about liberation and enlightenment for sentient beings think it is hard, but don’t listen to them.

Life is very short, like lightning, therefore do your best for sentient beings. Becoming a nun is very good, and I will pray that you have a good life. Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers...

My very dear one,
Thank you very much, a billion times, for showing me your sincerity and especially your prayers. You are much better than me. A billion, billion times better than me. Even when you have no time to meditate, still you do the prayers. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. That’s very good. It protects you from the karma of missing prayers and breaking promises. I’m very happy to hear that, your sincerity.

I checked and if you become a monk that came out best. You can die any year, month or week. There’s not much time to live, therefore it’s good to be a monk. In Bendigo, Australia [at Thupten Shedrup Ling Monastery] they need more monks and you can help the center. As you know, the gompa just got burnt by fire. If I was there maybe they would blame me, thinking I was the one who burnt the gompa. Fortunately I was in Bodhgaya and very far away, otherwise I would be very easy to blame.

You have had plenty of girlfriends, so that’s enough. Otherwise you get drawn and stuck endlessly in the quagmire of samsara, like an elephant drowned in the mud with all the samsaric suffering. Every life has the suffering of relationships, of husband and wife. That’s just human life, without talking about hell and the lower realms. Look how much the world is suffering. So much.

If you can read the Arya Sanghata Sutra and finish at least one recitation each week, that’s very good, fantastic. The motivation is not just for you, but for the happiness of all sentient beings to achieve enlightenment. For that you have to achieve enlightenment, actualizing the whole path, so read the Arya Sanghata Sutra.

I have one more story for you. I told another old student that he was going to die tomorrow, so I told him that today he should become a monk, a gelong, a pure gelong, then die tomorrow.

With much love and prayers...

My very dear one,
I am very surprised to receive a letter from you after so many years. Thank you very, very much. I am eager to learn from you, in the forty years since you left Nepal, what you have learned, the essence. You can tell me when I meet you.

I understand the reasons why you want to become a nun. The general reasons I understand—your age and many things—but  still it may not be the right time for you to be ordained. I think maybe you need to come to  the center and stay there for some time, maybe one or two years, and study more lamrim and do more meditation first. Then you can become a nun; then more stable.

You told me what qualities you have, so maybe you can benefit the center. What you are thinking now, that is what really has to be done.

With much love and prayers...

My most dear, most kind, most precious wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind emails, I am so sorry for the long delay.

To generate the preparation, meditate on the lamrim, such as on Liberation in the Palm of your Hand or Essence of Refined Gold. Especially try to develop realizations of renunciation of this life, the graduated path of the lower and middle capable being, the suffering of samsara and the nature of suffering. Please meditate until you get strong understanding.

It is best to have realizations of the lamrim, guru devotion, renunciation of this life and future lives, as strongly as possible, then to become a monk and live well in the vows. That is a very, very good life; it is most meaningful, the best life, the best way to use this perfect human life. In this way you purify past negative karma and obscurations, then you don’t have to be reborn in the lower realms.

The main thing is to practice morality and then in the next life you will be reborn as a deva or human. Even by practicing bodhisattva vows and tantric vows, then the next life creates the cause to have a perfect human rebirth. So by practicing all three vows—pratimoksha, bodhisattva and secret mantra—this creates the cause for a human rebirth, to meet the Dharma again—the Mahayana and tantra teachings. Not only that, you can also achieve ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara, and by practicing the three higher trainings you can achieve full enlightenment and have perfect compassion and bodhicitta.

You can see that having this perfect human rebirth and using it this way is more precious than the whole sky filled with wish-granting jewels, but it doesn’t last forever, it doesn’t last long. Death can happen any year, any month, any week, any day or any night, any hour, any minute. Especially nowadays, there are so many circumstances that cause death, especially cancer; so many people die of cancer and many other conditions. So we must practice Dharma right away.

So, you becoming a monk, that is the right answer. Thank you very much a billion times.

With much love and prayers...

My very dear one,
It comes out very good to become a monk right away. The purpose of becoming a monk is because we have delusions and an unsubdued mind, so we need to subdue the mind and cease the delusions that harm ourselves and other sentient beings who are numberless. We need to cease the delusions and also, in the future, the subtle obscurations, so we can complete the realizations and achieve full enlightenment.

This is not for you, but for sentient beings: for every single one of the human beings who are numberless, for numberless sura beings, numberless asura beings, numberless hell beings, numberless animals—even the dogs and cats in Nalanda; even the fish and animals that live in the river at Nalanda; any insects that live in the water that we can’t see with the eye but only with a machine; every insect on the ground, every fly and so on—for every one of the hungry ghosts who are like a forest outside and for numberless intermediate state beings.

You are becoming a monk for every single one of these sentient beings, to free them from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to full enlightenment. So the reason you are becoming a monk is not a small one. It is not because you are upset with your wife or your boyfriend, or because that person dislikes you, therefore you want to become a monk. It’s not like that. [Rinpoche laughs] In that case, you would become a monk for a few days or months, or at the longest a year. After that, your mind would degenerate and you would think, “What is the use in being a monk?” and give up. You would be happy to give up being a monk, because you would feel like you were in prison. You wouldn’t want to be in the monastery. Becoming a monk is not like that at all.

The purpose of becoming a monk is because now you are in prison—you are in the prison of samsara and you want to be free from that prison. That is a big reason, a huge reason, it is bigger than Mt. Everest. You can’t measure it; it’s huge. Also, you want to free the numberless sentient beings of each realm from the prison of samsara and bring them to enlightenment.

Generally the purpose of becoming a monk is that you have less work and less activities, so that gives more time to practice. You are in the right situation to be a monk right now, so it will be easy to practice Dharma and have realizations. That’s why you should become a monk. For lay people, generally speaking there are a lot of distractions and a lot of work, so it is difficult to practice Dharma. In order to subdue the mind, we have to subdue the actions of the body and speech. That’s why monasteries are needed and why we need to live according to the monastic discipline. These are Dharma rules, not country rules. The purpose is to help the mind practice Dharma and to be able to keep the vows and precepts. Being a monk is also the basis for the bodhisattva practice and the basis for tantric vows and tantric realizations. So it helps on the quick path to enlightenment.

Practice Advice

1. Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga: 300,000. Every session is guru yoga, but this number is for the recitations of migtsema with visualization. When you recite the mantra, mainly do purification but also visualize receiving wisdom—great wisdom, clear wisdom, quick wisdom and profound wisdom, etc. There are seven wisdoms and these four are the main ones. You can also recite some mantras with the secret visualization.

2. Dorje Khadro Burning Offering: 40,000. 

3. Tsa-tsas: 50,000. The three saviours—Chenrezig, Manjushri and Vajrapani [Tib: rik sum gön po; རིགས་གསུམ་མགོན་པོ ]. Also make some tsa-tsas of Lama Tsongkhapa and Four-arm Mahakala.

4. Nyung Näs: five, but it’s good to also try to do nyung-näs every year.

5. Vajra Cutter Sutra: try to recite this every day, as much as possible. That would be good, if you can. Do at least one recitation of the Vajra Cutter Sutra a day, but reading it means not just going blah blah blah; the mind has to be with the subject as you are reciting it. If the mind is out, it doesn’t leave a positive imprint; the mind has to be in. Reciting the Vajra Cutter Sutra helps to quickly realize emptiness, to quickly be free from samsara, and also to help other sentient beings to quickly be freed from samsara. When you recite this sutra with bodhicitta it helps you to quickly achieve enlightenment.

First study one lamrim text from beginning to the end. In your case, you should study Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. You can also study Lama Tsongkhapa’s Middling Lamrim, but the main thing is Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. Read this from beginning to end and write down anything you don’t understand. Then you can ask the geshe or any of the older students who have studied well to clarify these points.

After that do effortful lamrim meditation, followed by effortless meditation.

Practicing this way is the very, very, very essence of life and of Dharma practice. This is how to make your life meaningful for all sentient beings, not only for yourself. Every single hell being is experiencing unimaginable, unimaginable, unimaginable, unimaginable, unimaginable suffering right now, then also numberless hungry ghosts, animals, human being, suras, asuras and intermediate state beings. Your practice is for all of them; your breathing is for all of them; your everyday life is for all of them; even if you are eating one piece of toast, one spoonful of rice, one glass of milkshake or one quarter of pizza, it is for all of them.

Your deity is Heruka, Kalachakra or Hayagriva (not Most Secret Hayagriva but Hayagriva). You can take the initiations for all of these, but the main one is Hayagriva.

Not now, but after some years, after some time, you can try to attain shi-nä on the basis of lamrim practice.

Thank you very much. Your hard work at Nalanda is very, very, very good. It is purification and also you are working for the Sangha. If you have received initiation or teachings from me and you are already a disciple, this work is fulfilling the guru’s wishes, so it is the most powerful way of collecting merits and doing purification.

Thank you very, very, very, very, very much. Welcome to nirvana and enlightenment.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa