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The following is picked up from Kyabje Rinpoche's advice as published in the FPMT 2011 Annual Report and also in FPMT's website. Before Rinpoche gave this advice, I have already committed to reducing my meat intake several years ago. I only hope people who profess to be diehard Rinpoche students will learn to take heed of this advice. One of the things they should do is to do away with any meat whatsoever from ever being eaten in FPMT centres. The other thing I want to say is that there are "people from that banished group" (banned by HH the Dalai Lama) had been saying that Rinpoche got a stroke due to his broken samaya with that .... (unmentionable)... This is totally rubbish and nonsense. They create all sorts of contradictory talks even with other respectable Lamas. They want to create doubts in our minds. They should stop all the lies. In honour of Rinpoche and the coming Wesak celebration, I will try to be meatless for the entire day from the 15th of the 3rd Lunar month to Wesak Day (which is on 5 May, 2012). Anyway, here's Rinpoche's sweet advice.
My very dear most precious, wish-fulfilling, dearest benefactors, students, staff of the FPMT organization, friends and everybody.
Because
I had a stroke you can’t imagine all the pujas that have been done in Tibet,
India and all over the world, it is most unbelievable the amount of pujas that
have been done, such as so many hundreds and thousands and millions of
Padmasambhava mantras and Om Mani Padme Hum in Tibet and so on, in many
different places by individuals, groups and centers, projects and services.
Then especially the liberation of animals, so many in Tibet and other places,
of course that is a very good thing as it helps the animals to not suffer and
not be killed.
When I was in hospital I saw a program about animals that were sold to be killed in Indonesia and other countries (live export), I don’t know how long this has been going one, must be already for a long time.
On the TV I saw the goats waiting in line, between wood fences, it didn’t show how they were killed, but it showed one cow that was on the platform, with the head tied, being pulled down to be killed. The cow didn’t want to go and the man was pulling it. I thought I don’t have power to stop all this killing, but what I can do is to try to inspire people to become vegetarian and since then whatever teaching I am giving, even if it is tantra, I am trying to talk to people about becoming vegetarian, to avoid eating meat or to eat less meat so that there are less animals getting killed. I am trying like that.
Then just to mention that one person in Vietnam became vegetarian because he heard I was sick and one student from Amitabha Buddhist Center in Singapore took lifetime Mahayana precepts after she heard I was sick and one prisoner in USA also stopped eating meat. So they are really really amazing!
I am very, very sorry, even the abbots of the large monasteries and high officials in the Tibetan Government, when they get sick or die don’t have so many pujas done, but I who is nothing, has no education, from this life and neither from past lives, just an old cow that couldn’t even chew the grass well, difficult to benefit others, so all over the world individuals and also centers did so many pujas and each monks at Nalanda Monastery recited 1000 x the long Namgyalma mantra, so that is really amazing, this helps them so much, it is most unbelievable, most unbelievably powerful, after that they will have so much power to help others, it is such a rare thing to have done.
Really there are no words left to thank everyone, even to those who just did some prayers, with a positive heart, so with my palms together at the heart, really thank you. So now I will try to benefit, with two or three words of Dharma that I know, just like imitating, like a tape recorder, I will try like that as much as possible to help others.
For me this experience has been like learning the lam-rim, which is the heart of the Dharma, the heart of the Kangyur and Tengyur. To really understand that karma is definite - once virtue has been created and dedicated to enlightenment and sealed with emptiness and not destroyed by heresy or anger and once non-virtue has been created and if it has not been purified then it is definite that one will have to experience the result.
Then karma is expandable - even if what is created is very small, the result is expandable. For example according to King Ashoka's life story, when he was child playing in the sand he offered a handful of sand to the Buddha, but he visualized that it was gold and he actually received the merit of having actually offered gold in Buddha’s beggar bowl. In his next life he was born as a Dharma King, he was very wealthy and was able to build ten million stupas in one day. So that is amazing, amazing, amazing, unbelievable merits he was able to collect. So this is the same in regards to negative karma.
This means it is very important to abandon even small negative karma as much as possible and to practice even small good karma as much as possible. To really put effort in this way.
Then if the cause has been created then one will experience the result of that karma, the result will never get lost, no matter how many billions of years ago it was created, one will still have to experience the result. For example we can see this in our lives, maybe somebody is so beautiful, so healthy, then suddenly their whole body totally changes, becomes so sick. They might wonder what happened, that they didn’t do anything bad in this life so why now do they have to experience this pain. So this is the result of negative karma created either in this life or billions and billions of eons ago. One should not relate everything to just this life, that is silly. We must have created so much karma from beginningless rebirth, that we have not yet finished experiencing the results.
Then karma that is created never gets lost – no matter how small the karma is, the result never gets lost. This has been really a serious teaching for me.
Please everybody, dear ones, wish-fulfilling dears, most precious friends, please rejoice in the unbelievable, unbelievable merit that has been created, please rejoice in all the pujas that have been done by every single individual, or in groups, and also please rejoice for all those who have dedicated their lives to FPMT, all the directors and staff who have sacrificed their lives for many years, completely sacrificed their most precious time, as well as those who have done practices, even simple good prayers, for the organization, everyone has taken on so many hardships, this is real bodhisattva actions and real guru yoga practice, by doing the work or practice, thinking of the Guru, so in this way fulfilling His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s advice, fulfilling the wishes of all the buddhas and bodhisattvas, by pleasing them by benefitting sentient beings, with the teachings of Buddha, by studying and also by practicing.
On behalf of all the buddhas and bodhisattvas, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lama Yeshe, every single sentient being and minute me - thank you from my heart, with my palms together (even the right hand which has stroke and doesn’t stay up so well) but still putting them both together, with all my ten fingers, thank you, thank you all every day, every hour, every minute and every second, thank you very much.
Please enjoy with bodhicitta, enjoy the happiness of Dharma with bodhicitta.
Lama Zopa
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