An inmate in a Californian prison recited one million Medicine Buddha mantras and dedicated them to RinpocheÂ’s long life. He then wrote requesting Rinpoche to be his guru. Rinpoche responded as follows.
My very dear Kenny,
Thank you very much for your kind letter.
Regarding your request for me to be your guru—I accept. You try, and I will try. You have a responsibility, and I have a responsibility. You have the responsibility to follow, and I have the responsibility to guide.
Thank you very much for reciting the Medicine Buddha mantra one million times. It would also be very good if you could recite the Heart Sutra 5,000 times, so that you can quickly realize emptiness. Through that, you will develop wisdom. Only then can you end the most terrifying prison of karma and delusion. And only then can you be free from the prison of samsara, which is being caught in the cycle of death and rebirth and all the sufferings, and having to experience them again and again.
Without freedom you will take rebirth again and again, without a secondÂ’s break, continuously, because your own aggregates are contaminated, full of delusion and karma. Because of that, they are in the nature of suffering, and so you will have to experience suffering again and again. Continuously, you are caught in this always, from life to life. Actually, this is the most terrifying prison.
What ordinary, mundane people call prison, where you are, is actually similar to the places where hermits live in retreat. It is like where those ancient yogis, the great holy beings of the past, present, and also the future, spend their whole life or many years, in isolated places, caves, and hermitages, sometimes in extremely poor conditions. By disciplining their body, speech, and mind and living in virtue, they create the cause for happiness, not only temporal happiness but ultimate happiness. This causes them to be liberated from all suffering and its causes, and to achieve enlightenment and liberate so many sentient beings.
For these yogi practitioners, your conditions—being locked up in a room alone—would be seen as those of the luckiest person, as you have the time and opportunity to practice. Without the condition of being in prison, your life would be full of distractions, sense pleasures, delusions, etc. and you would just follow these distractions and never seek the Dharma or have interest in Dharma. You would never be inspired or try to practice, because there is so much distraction from the mind (inner delusions and superstitions) and so many distractions outside. Even if you are not alone but are locked in a room with many people, then also this situation should persuade you and remind you that you should never waste your life, that you have a most precious human body, and you should use it to practice and to develop your mind toward enlightenment.
Meditation and reciting mantras are very important practices. But a very basic practice, which is more important than those, is practicing having a good heart and being kind to others, developing loving kindness, compassion, and universal responsibility. When you sincerely practice being kind to others and you want to give every single cause of happiness to others, then, even if you don’t expect it, the result is that naturally everybody becomes kind to you and is happy with you. They listen to you, and in this way, you can help others. You can talk to them about the path, how to get out of the most terrifying prison—samsara—and achieve everlasting happiness and total liberation.