Incense offering puja dedicated to all beings who are sick, presided over by Lama Zopa Rinpoche at his house, Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington State, USA, November 2016. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche was asked for advice by a student who has cancer. His brother is taking care of him, including helping him go the bathroom and cleaning him afterward. Rinpoche typed up the following advice himself to send to the student:

Tell the person who has cancer that when I was with Lama Yeshe, Lama Yeshe cooked and took care of me, and I just sat and did prayers, and wandered around the world, looking like meditating.

So on the way to Los Angeles to check in at the hospital, Lama was meant to have an operation, but they did not operate because it was too late, they said. They hired a small airplane, on the way on the plane I had to clean Lama’s holy kaka, maybe two times. That made Lama very happy. It looked to me like Lama did that just for me, so that I could purify many eons of negative karma. Maybe this is why especially Lama was happy. So this is the quick path to enlightenment.

Tell the person who is cleaning up after the student who has cancer that also Buddha practiced charity, giving his life and his eyes and limbs numberless times for three countless eons. Then he practiced pure morality, all the hardships for three countless eons, then even cut his own limbs. He practiced perseverance, concentration, and wisdom for three countless eons then completed the two merits, the merit of wisdom and of method, and then achieved the two kayas, holy body and mind. So this was all for us sentient beings to be fully free from samsara and bring to full enlightenment.

So taking care of him, cleaning his kaka and pee-pee, is like this. It is for collecting the most extensive merits and for purification, and is a quick way to achieve enlightenment for numberless sentient beings. So is soooooooo precious, so kind for us. Thank you.

Also know that even if he is not cherishing numberless sentient beings, just even cherishing one sentient being brings one to enlightenment. For example Aryasanga (Asanga) did not see Maitreya Buddha even after twelve years of retreat. Then he left to come down on the road and he saw a black dog totally wounded, full of maggots. Aryasanga felt soooooooooooooo much compassion for the dog that he cut flesh from his thigh—not somebody else’s thigh—to put the maggots on. Then he stretched out his tongue, closing his eyes, but his tongue did not touch the maggots on the dog. So he then opened his eyes and he saw Maitreya Buddha, he grasped Maitreya Buddha. And he said, “How come for so long I did not see you when I was in retreat?” Maitreya Buddha said, “I was always there in the cave with you.” Then he showed Aryasanga where he, Aryasanga, had spit in the cave, and actually he had spit on Maitreya Buddha’s robe!

Then Maitreya Buddha asked him, “What do you want?” Aryasanga asked for teachings, then Maitreya Buddha took him in the pure land of Tushita. One morning there is like fifty years in the human realm. Maitreya Buddha gave teachings. When Aryasanga came down he wrote five treaties of teachings, like Abhisamayalamkara and so forth. A long time afterward, Lama Atisha wrote The Lamp of Path to Enlightenment, which contains the whole path. As a result, for soooo many years up to now, so many beings have achieved full enlightenment and are free from samsara and able to free so many other beings from samsara and bring them to full enlightenment.

So what I am saying is that numberless sentient beings have achieved full enlightenment from those teachings up to now and have actualized the whole path to full enlightenment. This came from Aryasanga generating great compassion to that wounded dog.

Another story is in the commentary on Vajrayogini. Getsul Tsembulwa was the disciple of a great yogi called Nakpo Chopawa. Getsul Tsembulwa was a monk living in thirty-six vows. So first his teacher came, he was going for his last conduct (tantric conduct) in Odi close to Buxa, where I lived eight years. So there was a big river. At the river’s edge, there a was totally poor lady, full of leprosy, and pus and blood coming out of her, she was so dirty. And she was asking, “Please take me to the other side of the river.” The great yogi Nakpo Chopawa did not listen; he went straight across the river without helping her. Then his disciple Getsul Tsembulwa came and she asked him the same thing. As soon as he saw her there arose unbelievable compassion in him. He did not care at all that by touching her he might also get leprosy, or that she was a woman and therefore, as a monk, he should not touch her. He immediately carried her across the river on his back. When he was only halfway across the river, because of the compassion he generated, he had purified soooooooo much negative karma and obscurations that the lady was no longer that dirty ordinary lady, but actually Dorje Pagmo (Vajrayogini). She was Dorje Pagmo from beginning but he could not see that. Now he saw Dorje Pagmo. Then without the need to leave this body, she took him in the pure land Thakpa Khachoe. There one can definitely become enlightened.

So you see, definitely you can be enlightened by generating compassion, such as toward that lady who was unbelievably dirty and sick. There are numberless stories that show this.

So now he should think that the person who he is caring for, cleaning up, is the most precious, kindest, wish-fulfilling gem. Even it is only one person. Destroy cherishing the I, which is the source of all the suffering of oneself and the source of all other sentient beings’ sufferings.

Please take care well and think about these teachings and understand them well. Generating compassion for people who are sick with cancer etc., cleaning their kaka and pee-pee, and serving them is extremely important, even for this life, for all the wishes to succeed, and then also for hundreds of thousands and millions of lives, to have unbelievable success and to quickly actualize the path and achieve enlightenment.

Bodhisattva Thogme Zangpo said, “All suffering comes from desiring happiness for oneself. The full completed realization, the total cessation of all the obscurations, comes from the thought of benefiting others.”

Kadampa Geshe Langri Tangpa said, “For profit offer the victory to sentient beings. Why? Because all the collection of goodness comes from that sentient being. All the loss take on yourself, because all the harms and sufferings came from cherishing the I. Take any defeat or loss on yourself.”

Incense offering puja with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, dedicated to all beings who are sick, Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington State, USA, November 2016. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Advice dated November 2016, Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, WA, USA. Transcribed by Ven. Holly Ansett and edited by Mandala.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.