1000-Armed Chenrezig, Kachoe Dechen Ling, Aptos, California,November 2014. Photo by Chris Majors.

A student wrote Lama Zopa Rinpoche with a serious confession: “My forefathers have done very heinous sins, which is the major cause of suffering in our family now. My grandma’s father and his friends a long, long time ago killed a monk by forcibly driving him to jump into a river, where he drowned. That monk was passing our village to go back to Tibet after pilgrimage, but my grandma’s father and his friends stopped him on his way and took all his belongings and killed him. I am very ashamed to tell this story, but I have faith that I can stop all this suffering with the help of Rinpoche’s advice ….”

You need to do 10 x 100,000 [i.e., 1 million] OM MANI PADME HUMs urgently, not just to purify your negative karma, but also the negative karma of those who killed the monk and the whole family. Recite OM MANI PADME HUM without a distracted mind. Visualize 1000-Armed Chenrezig, huge like a mountain and radiating light. From Chenrezig beams of compassion are sent out to those family members who killed the monk, to yourself and to all your family. That’s the main thing. Then at the end of each mala, think that the beams purified all sentient beings: the numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless humans, numberless suras and asuras. They all become Chenrezig, including your family members. As you recite OM MANI PADME HUM, mainly concentrate on your family: beams are continually emitted from Chenrezig, purifying them, and then at the end of each mala, think all sentient beings are purified and become Chenrezig. Then again, do purification; continue like that.

And if you can build one statue of 1000-Armed Chenrezig, the size should be 32 inches (80 cm), for the monk, those who killed the monk, the rest of the family and all sentient beings.

My mother used to do 50,000 mantras a day but when she was close to dying, one year before she died, she said she couldn’t do that much. Because she recited all those OM MANI PADME HUM mantras, she had more compassion than me, even though she couldn’t read even one letter because she didn’t know the Tibetan alphabet.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

Scribed by Ven. Sarah Thresher, Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, March 2015. Edited by Mandala for inclusion on FPMT.org.

Learn more about Lama Zopa Rinpoche, spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), and Rinpoche’s vision for a better world. Sign up to receive news and updates.