Lama Zopa Rinpoche

There are other stories, like a very learned geshe who died falling from a car that crashed.
Nobody else in the car was thrown out but he was catapulted over a precipice and died,
having great regret. And there are other such stories of catastrophes that happened to geshes
at the time of death. So, it seems there is great harm at the very end.
When my master, Lama Yeshe, who was kinder than all the past, present and future
buddhas, was passing away, he went to Los Angeles for an operation in a good hospital but
they didn’t operate because the doctors said the heart was too old to do the operation. What
they did, though, was put a hole in it and attach some tubes using a new technique. We were
not allowed to go into the room while that was happening because there were machines
there but when Lama came out he said it was quite difficult, almost like he had passed away.
We were in America but it was the Tibetan New Year, early in the morning, around two
thirty or three o’clock. 50 Whenever obstacles occurred I was used to reciting the request to
Dolgyal for help, so I was reciting that. Lama’s belly seemed to be moving around and I was
reciting the prayer requesting help when Lama’s eyes opened wide, like he was seeing some
unpleasant aspect. It was like he was surprised, seeing some form there. It didn’t seem
positive; it was like there was some negative aspect there. I’m not saying that Lama had made
a mistake but the aspect was like that. So, as I recited the request for Dolgyal’s help it was
like he was seeing something fearful. His eyes were big and had a kind of surprised, fearful
look.
Dolgyal was the main protector he relied on. That is my view. He commonly used Dolgyal,
for example, during the Kopan courses whenever somebody went crazy. Not everybody
went crazy there, of course. Actually, I suppose it depends on your definition of craziness.
On one level I’m crazy, you’re crazy, everybody is crazy. On one level it’s like that, but at the
level we worldly people are on only a few people become crazy with lung or things like that.
Lama would do the Dolgyal puja before each one-month Kopan course started and then
whenever there was something important. However, at the end of a person’s life the aspect
that Dolgyal shows is not good, as I said before. I mentioned Lama’s external aspect in the
foreword I wrote.
Another danger of following Dolgyal is that the person criticizes His Holiness. When
somebody who is not a bodhisattva gets angry with a bodhisattva for even one second it
destroys all the merit he has collected over a thousand eons making charity, making offerings
to the buddhas and so forth. So if somebody criticizes or gets angry with His Holiness, can
you imagine? For however long the person is angry and criticizes His Holiness—however
many weeks, months or years—countless eons of merit are destroyed.
Of the many bodhisattvas, the Buddha predicted that the bodhisattva Limitless Supreme
Awareness, attaining the state of Chenrezig, would be in Tibet in the aspect of His Holiness
the Dalai Lama to benefit the Tibetan people and spread the Dharma. There were four great
prayers done for sentient beings in Tibet and people generated refuge in their heart in the
Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, so it happened as the Buddha has predicted. Getting angry
with a buddha like His Holiness destroys the merit created in the past over millions,
probably hundreds of millions of eons. These very heavy things happen.
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