Lama Zopa Rinpoche's Online Advice Book

Practice Advice

: Transforming Problems /

Tong-len

By

Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche

at various locations (Last Updated Jan 26, 2010)

•

Tong-len: Exchanging Self and Others

•

Tong-len and the Four immeasurable Thoughts

• Transforming Problems

Thought Transformation

[posted June 2012]

Rinpoche dictated the following when he was preparing for a talk in Colorado in 2010, however, in the end he

didn’t use this material.

Transforming Problems Welcome to all the people (distinguished guests),
I am very happy to be here to meet all my brothers and sisters and to share peace and happiness from
Buddhism, from my tiny bit of understanding of Buddhism.

The subject is thought transformation and the need to practice this according to what the kind and
compassionate Shakyamuni Buddha taught. This is the most profound Buddhist science of the mind, deep
like the Pacific Ocean and extensive like space.

Why should we apply this practice and take this treatment?

By practicing thought transformation, our suffering is transformed into happiness immediately, bringing peace
and happiness, and release from the prison of self-cherishing thought. We are released from the prison of the
selfish mind and other delusions, the obscuring disturbing negative thoughts and wrong concepts, such as
ignorance, anger and attachment.

We receive incredible freedom, peace and happiness; freedom from being constantly tortured by the negative
thoughts and being totally cheated by the hallucinated thoughts. We receive peace and happiness, not only
from moment- to-moment, but also in our day-to-day life.

We receive not only long-term happiness and peace in our future lives, but we also achieve ultimate
happiness, the total cessation of all the sufferings, including the dissatisfaction of sickness and old age, and
the cycle of death and rebirth We cease the cause of suffering, which is not external, only internal —karma,
through our actions, and delusion, the obscuring, disturbing negative attitude.

We also receive ultimate happiness, great liberation—the non-abiding sorrowless state, the fully awakened
state.

Transforming Difficulties

[posted Aug 2011]

Rinpoche sent the following handwritten card to a student who was having difficulties.

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Thank you very much for your kind letter. You should know we are living in samsara. That means we
experience problems, or suffering. Otherwise, we are liberated.

Because we did not actualize the path in our last life and this life, we experience problems. The solution is to
practice Dharma and actualize the path. Only then can we abandon the cause of suffering: delusion and
karma.

Practice thought transformation. Transform everything into happiness, and use it as the path to
enlightenment, as a cause for happiness for all living beings. This human life you have is like liberation, so be
happy, because the suffering of the lower realms is like the limitless sky.

Zopa

Hardships

[posted Oct 2009]

Rinpoche gave the following advice on how to treat hardships.

A geshe gave a talk recently on difficulties, when one’s mind is weak, and how we should have courage when
problems arise. Geshe-la said to think that the problems and difficulties are ornaments, so we bear hardships
like wearing heavy ornaments because they beautify us.

An example is piercing the body. We are able to endure the pain of the piercings in order to look beautiful. In
the same way, we should have patience and, no matter how many hardships we have, we should bear them
for sentient beings, have endurance.

Recently I met a homeless man in New York. He lived on the streets and had a very worn umbrella to protect
him from the elements. I passed him each day when I went to the local park to do water offering practice for
the pretas. I asked a nun to give him her big umbrella as he needed it much more than her. One day I
stopped and asked him what was the most difficult thing for him. He replied “Endurance.” I immediately put
my hands together in the mudra of prostration and said that this is a great answer, a great teaching.

In samsara, difficulties will always arise because the cause has been created, so we need to wear the
hardships as ornaments and have courage and endurance.

When Problems Interfere with Practice

[posted Jan. 2006]

A young Italian student had been experiencing various problems. Even though she was practicing, it seemed

that things kept getting worse. Then she became depressed, and was unable to practice any longer.

My very dear Laura,
Thank you very much for your kind letter.

All that you are experiencing is due to past karma. It is still very good to continue to practice Lion-Face
Dakini. Also, if you can recite the

White Umbrella prayer

. You should also perform Medicine Buddha puja

three times – you can practice it with other people.

It would also be very good if you could recite the

Arya Sanghata Sutra

four times, and the

Sutra of Golden

Light

five times. Read whatever you can each day, until you complete the recitations.

Also, you can take the Eight Mahayana Precepts [see Rinpoche's

Direct and Unmistaken Method]

twice each

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month. This is very powerful for purifying past negative karma, as well as for collecting merit, so that you can
have a good rebirth in your next life, when death comes, which can happen at any time. So, this would be
extremely good.

Regarding reading the two sutras, this is a very important way to collect extensive merits. Also, reading these
two sutras becomes a very powerful purification practice. If you read even just two or three words of the Arya
Sanghatasutra, it purifies the five uninterrupted karmas (killing your father, killing your mother, killing an
arhant, drawing blood from a Buddha, and causing a schism in the sangha community). Even hearing just
two or three words from this sutra is very powerful purification, so reading the whole sutra is much greater.
Also, by reading these two sutras you collect so much merit, for your health, long life, protection, and so on.
But most importantly, you collect extensive merit that purifies negative karma and defilements, so that you
can achieve the path as quickly as possible, liberate many sentient beings from unimaginable sufferings, and
bring them to enlightenment as quickly as possible—especially the sentient beings who are connected to you,
so that they can meet the Dharma, be free from samsara, and achieve enlightenment.

It is also very good if you can do a little lam-rim meditation each day, on the lam-rim outlines, especially
focusing on impermanence, death, and bodhicitta. You can follow the outlines of the two ways to generate
bodhicitta. For one week focus mainly on death and impermanence, and then the next week on bodhicitta. Do
this for some time.

Purifying negative karma is one way to not experience problems. The other solution is to collect extensive
merit, so that you can have fewer problems and experience more success and happiness. When things are
difficult in your life, this is the result of past negative karma. Whether you experience this as suffering or
happiness depends on how you look at the situation. If you look at it as pleasure then it becomes pleasure
and happiness. The suffering is transformed into happiness. This depends on your thinking differently from
how you normally think.

It is good to think in the way it is explained in the Guru Puja, in the lam-rim section:

Should even the environment and the beings therein
Be filled with the fruits of their karmic debts
And unwished for sufferings pour down like rain
We seek your blessings to take these miserable conditions as a path
By seeing them as causes to exhaust the results of our negative karma.

In this way you are looking at the problems as purifying past negative karma. The first way to think when you
encounter problems is to think that they are finishing your past negative karma.

As Kadampa Geshe Kara Gomchen says:

Even the present little suffering finishes past negative karma,
And one will have happiness in the future,
Therefore look at the suffering as happiness.

Always remember this quotation, whenever you have difficulties.

Another way is to look at the problems and suffering in your life as positive. One way they can become
positive is when you experience sufferings on behalf of other sentient beings. Do the tong-len practice of
taking other sentient beings’ suffering on yourself, as your own suffering. Take the suffering into your heart,
onto your ego, and think that it destroys your ego, which becomes non-existent. Think also that your
emotional “I” or ego “I”—the one that cherishes the ego—also becomes non-existent. Then meditate on that

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emptiness. This way tong-len becomes not only a means to develop bodhicitta but also to develop emptiness.
Do this practice regularly, and then, from time to time, think, “I am experiencing this suffering, these
difficulties and problems, on behalf of all sentient beings. May they have all happiness, up to enlightenment.”

When you take on others’ suffering, the idea is that they experience all happiness up to enlightenment. When
you live your life with this attitude as much as possible, then whatever negative problem occurs only appears
to you as an incredible opportunity. This also depends on how strongly you recollect how very kind and
precious sentient beings are to you, and how much they are suffering. Through this, one feels their
unbearable suffering.

In this way, every second that you experience suffering for others, you collect merit as vast as the sky, and
purify eons of negative karma. Each time, you become closer to enlightenment and closer to enlightening
other sentient beings.

This is the way to develop bodhicitta. By experiencing suffering for others, one can see that this is the
happiest life. There is no happier life than this in the world.

When you are experiencing difficulties or problems in your life, normally you label the problem as a problem,
and then you experience suffering, because of the way phenomena appear, including the “I,” action, and
objects. Even though the way an object (as well as the “I” and action) exists is to exist in mere name—merely
imputed by the mind—it doesn’t appear to us in that way. Its appearance is totally opposite to how it is in
reality. It appears to be not merely labeled by the mind. It appears as real, and existing from its own side.
This is a complete hallucination. This is the object to be refuted. If you look at this as an hallucination, or as
the object to be refuted, you decide in your heart that the problem is empty or an hallucination. Because of
that, suddenly you don’t see it as a problem in your life.

Usually, when there is an hallucinated appearance, a truly-existent appearance, you make your mind believe
in the hallucinated appearance, that it is reality. Then, on that basis, other exaggerations occur, and you see
the appearances as bad, or you label them bad, and then they become a basis for anger to arise.

Another thing we do is exaggerate the base and label an object as beautiful, and from that attraction arises,
or some other delusion. From that hallucinated base, other delusions arise, such as jealousy and so forth,
and this is how one’s problems come from own one’s mind. Knowing this, you know immediately what to do –
how to switch your way of thinking to looking at the situation as an hallucination, as empty. In this way, you
can stop problems in your mind by meditating on emptiness.

You mentioned in your letter how the problems come from within your mind. First, suffering comes from your
mind because the cause is karma: one’s own mental factors and a negative intention. This means your mind
can stop the suffering by purifying the cause of the suffering. Your mind can experience happiness and
success, because your mind can create the causes: the good karma.

For example, if you practice covetousness, it causes you to experience failure. But if you rejoice in others’
good fortune, and in good things that happen to others, that becomes the cause of your great success.

Also, if you experience envy or jealousy, not wanting others to have happiness, realizations, material wealth,
or good friends, thinking this way becomes the cause to experience failure.

From this, you can see how everything comes from your mind. All happiness and success comes from your
mind. It depends on what label you put on experience and then your believing in that label, whether it is
“happiness” or “problem.” Therefore, you can see, as it is mentioned in the lam-rim teachings on thought
transformation in the Guru Puja, always keep your mind in a state of happiness, only putting a positive label
on phenomena.

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As I mentioned before, by doing this you will eliminate your past negative karma and then you will have a
better life and future happiness. Transform your mind with bodhicitta. This brings happiness based on the
thought of experiencing suffering for others.

If you are able, do what Geshe Jampa Gyatso advised, applying effort without letting your mind fall into
laziness or distraction due to pleasure. As you saw before, without Dharma practice, your life will become
miserable, and when you practice Dharma, it brings so much satisfaction and fulfillment.

You are in my prayers. Be happy. It looks like you need a more fixed schedule for the different practices that
you are doing. This keeps you strong, so you have a stable, happy mind.
With much love and prayers...

Taking on Obstacles

[posted Jan. 2006]

A student went to do a three-year retreat in the USA, but one and a half years into the retreat she came out to

be with her father while he was dying. Afterward, she found it hard to go back into retreat, and for other

reasons as well, became depressed. Rinpoche wrote her this card while he was leading a Mitukpa retreat in

the Milarepa center in Vermont.

Dear Nancy,
How are you? I heard you are very depressed. Do you know why? Is it because you had a family member
die and had to break retreat, or because other people seem happier, or is it because there was no success in
the retreat? If it is to do with how you see others, then it is easy. Just rejoice, then you collect so much merit,
and that brings you to enlightenment, and to enlighten others, who are countless, and so it brings you so
much happiness and peace in your heart.

If it is because of other distractions, then think, “It is not a distraction. It is practice.” Think, “I am taking on the
obstacles of other sentient beings, and letting them have all the opportunities and happiness.”

Do that meditation, and many times a day, think, “I am experiencing the obstacles to success on behalf of
sentient beings.” Then you achieve realizations quicker, like Asanga achieved the vision of Maitreya Buddha;
Kadampa Geshe Chekawa had a vision of a pure land at the time of his death, as a result of praying to be
reborn in the hell realms; and Getsul Tsubuwa went to Vajrayogini’s pure land with his own body.

One should plan to practice Dharma for eons, and to bear hardships for Dharma practice for eons.

Thank you very much.
With much love and prayers...

Dealing with Sadness

[posted Jan. 2006]

A student wrote to Rinpoche asking for advice because he often felt depressed, confused, very lonely, and

agitated. He said that he seemed to have a lot of obstacles preventing his mind from experiencing joy.

Dear Joe,
There is some reason why you feel sad. Look at that situation as positive instead of negative. This is how
you transform it into happiness, through transforming the mind. The mind projects a negative label on a
situation in life, and this needs to be transformed into a virtuous thought: compassion, loving kindness,
bodhicitta, cherishing others, and experiencing suffering for others. In this way, experiencing the problem,
including sadness, is used in the path to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings, which means it becomes
the cause of happiness for all sentient beings. The other thing is wisdom, looking at it as empty of existing
from its own side.

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Here are a few examples. Give the sadness to your ego—the self-cherishing thought, which has prevented
you from achieving enlightenment, liberation from samsara, and the rest of the path, from beginningless
rebirths up until now. It has made you suffer so much and caused you to feel this sadness for beginningless
rebirths, not only in this life.

Your ego prevents you from being successful. It interferes with the happiness of future lives and a good
rebirth, causing continuous suffering. So, give the sadness to your ego to destroy it, like a bomb, blowing up
the self-cherishing thought. When you do this, you are using your sadness to develop bodhicitta. Take all
sentient beings' sadness on yourself. From time to time, during the rest of the day, think, “I am experiencing
this on behalf of all sentient beings.” This is the best meditation.

If you die with this thought, you will be reborn in a pure land or you will receive a higher rebirth, because you
have bodhicitta. It brings great purification. The stronger you dedicate yourself to others, with the thought to
benefit all sentient beings, the more negative karma you purify and merit you collect. You become closer to
enlightenment and closer to being able to enlighten all sentient beings.

The other thing is also to accept your sadness. Think that it is the result of your past karma: having broken
samaya with the guru, caused sadness to others, or engaged in sexual misconduct. Depression that occurs
without a reason and that happens at certain times, such as when you get up in the morning, or at night, is
the result of sexual misconduct.

Think: “I created the negative karma, so this sadness I am experiencing is the result of that.” Accept the
karma. This will also help. Kadampa Geshe Karab Gomchung said: "Even this small suffering now helps to
finish past negative karma and there will be happiness in the future.” It is good to think like this. Transform the
problem into happiness in relation to karma.

Every day, recite one mala of the name of the Medicine Buddha Glorious One Free from Sorrow (NYA NGEN
ME CHOG PEL). Nectar beams enter your body and mind, purifying all your harms from spirits, downfalls,
negative karmas, and delusions and their imprints. You receive all the buddhas' wisdom, compassion, and
power. Then, your whole body is filled with joy. The nectar fills you with bliss, especially your heart and
chakras. (Also, recite the names of the Seven Medicine Buddhas seven times, but do one mala of this name
with the meditation. Practice it with a motivation of bodhicitta and a dedication at the end.)

Thank you very much. I hope this will help you. Goodbye.

With much love and prayer,
Zopa

PS - If there is a reason for your sadness, such as committing negative karma, it can always be purified.
Everything can be changed. But if the sadness means you are incapable of doing your work, study, practice,
or other things, then one way to think is that there are many other beings who are much worse off than you.
That way you see your situation is not so bad and that brings happiness. Don’t think that it is hopeless. Think,
"I will put in more effort. I will try. I will be better." Encourage yourself. For example, if you are unable to do
your practice, missed your practice, encourage yourself, "Again, I will try. I must try." Think of the opportunity
you have rather than seeing it as hopeless. This will help.

Dealing with Depression
Rinpoche received a letter from a student asking how to deal with her depression.

My very dear Jenny,
Thank you so much for your email.

Use your depression by experiencing it with compassion. Meditate on taking on all sentient beings’

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depression and suffering and the cause of that suffering. It comes to you and absorbs into your heart. Your
self-cherishing thought is destroyed. Even the inherently existent “I” becomes non-existent, the “I” that
appears as if it were truly existent.

Perform this practice with compassion for others who have more depression than you. Numberless beings
experience depression for many lifetimes, without end. Think, “I am just one living being. No matter how
much suffering I experience, others who are numberless, have so much more suffering.” Think, “By my
receiving all this depression, they are free of all suffering and have all happiness up to liberation and
enlightenment. I experience it for them, and let them have all happiness up to enlightenment. How wonderful
to be able to do this, because all my happiness is due to the kindness of each sentient being. They are the
most precious objects in my life, from whom I receive all my happiness.”

Then generate loving kindness: “I must cause them to have happiness and the cause of happiness.” They
receive whatever they want and need, all their pleasure becomes the pleasure of the pure land of the Buddha
where no problems exist. They receive from you the purest, highest sense pleasures, enjoyment, beauty:
everything they need. That causes them to actualize the whole path to enlightenment. Their mind becomes
the Dharmakaya, their body becomes the Rupakaya. All become enlightened.

Perform this meditation, if possible, in the morning, afternoon, and night, taking and giving 5, 10, 20 times or
more. Spend more time taking. While eating, walking, and at other times think, “I am experiencing this
depression on behalf of all sentient beings.” Think it is not your depression.

Enjoy your depression by voluntarily taking on the experience for numberless sentient beings and giving the
depression to your ego, destroying it completely. Enjoy depression in this way.

Think of the depression as purification of past negative karma, “If I don't experience this now, I will have to
experience the hell realms for many years, so it is good to have it now.”

Also think, “I am experiencing past heavy negative karma. This is being purified by my experiencing this.”

Experience the depression on behalf of all sentient beings. Use it to purify the cause of depression and all
negative karma. Use the depression to achieve happiness, like transforming poison into medicine, like, for
example, snake venom that is used for medicine.

Also, use depression to collect extensive merit. This way your depression becomes like many hundreds of
thousands of prostrations and recitation of powerful deities’ mantras. It becomes like preliminary practices for
purifying and collecting extensive merit, such as by making mandala offerings.

Work for other sentient beings to collect merit and purify. Here, you are using your depression to achieve not
just temporal happiness but ultimate happiness. Transform it into the path to enlightenment. Use it to develop
compassion for other sentient beings and bodhicitta. It is not only the cause to achieve your own
enlightenment but it brings ultimate happiness, up to enlightenment, for all sentient beings. So, enjoy
depression in this way.

At the beginning it is good to accept your depression, thinking “I deserve this.” That can help. Start with that.
Use the depression for meditation to develop renunciation of samsara, bodhicitta, and right view. This way
your depression is used so as to be totally free of depression forever. It becomes the best Dharma practice
and best way of healing.

Usually, taking medicine and following psychological advice doesn’t do anything for the cause of depression,
although it forces the problem down for a short time. It is like drinking alcohol. When it is gone from the body,
the problem is still there.

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If you have depression due to a particular reason, for example, a relationship problem, meditate on that
situation. If the depression is without reason, then do the mediation I have explained here.

Using depression to develop compassion enables us to achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible. It
allows us to free sentient beings from suffering and bring them to enlightenment more quickly. So, enjoy all
these benefits of depression, by thinking about them clearly.

More talks by Lama Zopa on this topic:
See the

Depression

topic in the Emotions chapter of the Advice Book.

See also the

Problems During One's Practice

topic in the Practice Advice chapter.

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