Lama Zopa Rinpoche blessing water to put in the lake and benefit all beings there, Madrid, Spain, April 2019. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

A student wrote to Lama Zopa Rinpoche about how she and her brothers and sisters responded to the murder of their father and grandmother. Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrote back to the student and then requested that his letter and an edited version of the student’s original letter be shared online so that all could read them. Here is Rinpoche’s letter: 

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

Thank you very much for your kind letter explaining your experience. Since you are a lawyer, what you would do normally, and what other people in the world would do normally, is only think of this lifetime, especially if someone had killed your father. That kind of harm is a huge and difficult one to bear.

Most people don’t think about karma, reincarnation, and so forth, and that all problems come from the mind, come from I. They don’t know that. Or even if they know intellectually, they don’t practice that. So they would put that person, whom they called “enemy,” in prison or they would kill that person, harm them back, or even do worse if they can. That is normally what people think and do in the world.

Then for a long time you were checking your experience and you realized that it is the result; you experienced the result of what you did in the past to others. The person who killed your father and grandmother were badly treated and harmed by you in the past.

Then you helped your brothers and sisters be harmonious and decide to help, instead of take revenge. This is the greatest practice. This is what Buddha said to do when somebody harms. This is what Buddha and what holy beings do in the world, and what bodhisattvas do. Somebody harmed you, worldly people say “an enemy,” but instead of harming back, you only benefit. This is what holy beings, bodhisattvas do, like that. Your actions follow that. This is the actual practice.

You made numberless gurus—His Holiness the Dalai Lama, all the gurus, all the buddhas, numberless bodhisattvas—most happy. You and your brothers and sisters made them most happy, pleased them the most. It is the best.

With my two hands together at my heart, I am thanking you a billion, zillion times from my heart to you and to your brothers and sisters. Please tell them I am thanking them. You pleased most His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the Buddha of Compassion, and then numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas.

The great bodhisattva Shantideva said in The Bodhisattva’s Way of Life:

My karma persuaded them,
Therefore, I received this harm.
Because of that, didn’t I make the person fall in the hole of the hell?

What it is saying is first why you received this harm. For example, relating to your life story, because you treated a person that way in a past life, the result happened: you received harm, and your father and grandmother were killed. By that action that happened, now the person who harmed is in the human realm, but soon that will end. That person will leave the human realm. And due to that negative karma, they will get born in the hole of the hell. Then suffer in the hell realms for an unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable length of time, suffer the heaviest suffering.

So that is not only practicing patience, but developing compassion, by thinking that the person who harmed you, which was due to your negative karma, now has to be born in hell and suffer for an unbelievable length of time. All that started originally from you; you harmed this person. This is a way to develop compassion—thinking about what obliged the person to do to harm, to engage in negative karma, to harm you. So please tell this to your sisters and brothers.

So in essence in Buddhism, first thinking only of your happiness, you see that to not receive harm from others, you don’t harm others. If you don’t harm others, then you don’t receive harm from others. If you benefit others, then as a result others benefit you, bring happiness to you. So that is only thinking of cherishing yourself, thinking only of you. So now thinking of numberless sentient beings, you stop harming others, then they don’t receive harm. The numberless sentient beings you benefit, they receive happiness. So this is incredible Mahayana Buddhism. This is the great vehicle, without talking about tantra. This is the basic practice of Mahayana Buddhism.

Similarly, the Tibetan people want to fight, like in the normal world, fight back at Mainland China, but His Holiness the Dalai Lama advised them to not fight. Without fighting the truth will win. He is talking only peace, in terms of dealing with Mainland China, only dealing in peace. If you fight, what happens is a similar story as you mentioned. Then you are creating the negative karma to receive harm from others, again and again. Then there is no end to suffering in samsara, no end, not only no beginning, but no end.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama advised that only by being peaceful, only by truth, will they win peace. It is so important this advice. This way you don’t receive harm back from others. You aren’t attacked by others. You don’t experience war. You get only the result—peace and happiness. You treat others peacefully, and as a result you receive peace, others help you. That is really Dharma practice.

Please tell your brothers and sisters, that is real practice, the best Dharma practice. What your family did, that should be an example to the world, to those who have highest scientific knowledge. Your family is a good example for all those billionaires and zillionaires. It is a good example for anyone—educated, uneducated, poor, rich. This is the best example for them.

Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

Here is the letter first sent by the student to Lama Zopa Rinpoche:

Dear Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche,

… Five days after my ordination, my grandmother and father died in the same event. I felt shocked about losing my father. Just that day in the morning, he called me and asked me if I was happy with the ordination. He was Catholic, but respectful. I replied I was very happy. Then he replied he was happy for me too. Same day at night, he died with his mother in their house.

They were poisoned by gas in their house. The gas was coming from the kitchen, and they fell asleep and died. In time, we discovered they were killed. My father’s first cousin killed them in order to steal or inherit money and keep it from my family. When we discovered that, it was a great shock. I have two brothers and two sisters. We were very angry.

I was incredibly angry, very confused. Just being ordained, I was trying my best to have a good heart and good thoughts. On the other hand, I was very angry about what happened. Out of anger I decided to go and visit the person who killed my father. I took my purse and started to walk to the car. Suddenly an image of you, Rinpoche, came into my mind. You were sitting in meditation posture with a beautiful and exquisite smile. At that moment, I started to cry so deeply and I realized what had happened. Straight away I thought, “Only because of Rinpoche’s great compassion did he ordained me.”

Then I decided to not visit the person who damaged my family. I cried and cried for a couple of days, trying to put all the experience together. I just felt that ordination was protecting my mind from seeing (I was a lawyer before) revenge, killing, cheating, and stealing. Feeling so protected by you, feeling so, so fortunate, I made the following statement: “From now on, my aim and duty is going to be to reduce my anger. When I am capable of overcoming anger, then I will help my brothers and sisters.”

During many months I did analytical meditation about anger. After one year, the anger had been reduced very much. Then I started working with my brothers and sisters to reduce their anger. One day, continuing with analytical meditation, I thought, “Maybe that was family karma.” Then I thought, “If that is the case, that means that in the past we have created the same, killing and stealing an inheritance for our own family.”

I imagined killing my own family and stealing from them, and it was so difficult to believe. Because in this life I have not killed a human being. And I had the belief that I was a good person. I continued meditating and analyzing. And then I got an insight: “I cannot experience anything that I have not created.”

So I imagined again myself with my two brothers and two sisters killing someone’s father and stealing the inheritance. Oh, Rinpoche, the biggest pain I’ve ever experienced came, thinking and understanding that in a past life I had dared to kill someone, so painful. It’s very difficult to overcome that. By thinking about it over and over, after two years I felt some peace, to understand that we were experiencing the result of actions that we had created. If we created it, we deserved the result.

Then I thought, if we created it in another lifetime, in this life the best thing to do is not to put that person in jail but to offer the inheritance to the person who killed and stole from my family. After many meetings with my brothers and sisters, we decided to give away the money and properties from the inheritance to the cousin who killed and not to put her in prison. We decided peace in death was more important than inheritance, and peace in life was more important.

This story, Rinpoche, is to voice my huge gratitude to you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you so, so much Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche for saving my life and protect my mind all the time. …

Colophon: Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s letter scribed by Ven. Holly Ansett, Nepal, March 2017. Both letters lightly edited by Laura Miller, March 2019.

Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche teach live from Madrid, Spain, April 26-29:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/

Find more advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche:
https://fpmt.org/teachers/zopa/advice/

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.