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I have great hope that this trip of mine to Ladakh tomorrow will bring great deal of happiness in the mind of people who have been suffering a great deal since the disaster took place. I came down from Darjeeling to Delhi twice trying to go and help. First time on the first day of disaster and now is my second time. But there was no means for me to go on the first day of disaster, so I asked all of my monks from Hemis and my nuns from Naro Temple in Shey to go and help. From tomorrow, I am trying to be in Ladakh for 1 week and I have asked my people to arrange my trip and to make full use of it, so that I can visit all the affected villages, about 20 in total and I am thinking of visiting 5 villages in a day.
I am looking forward to meeting all of you, my Ladakhi friends, students and disciples tomorrow. Don't cry and be strong. This is samsara, we have to understand and appreciate whatever experience we are going through. It is difficult, no one ever says that life is easy, but we will all be together and we will be there to support each other. It's tormenting for me to see the photos of those parts of Ladakh where disasters happened and many beings were killed. Just as you have showered us for thousands of years the blessings of nature's beauty, just as you have given us the best of yourself, we will always be there in good and bad times, and joining together, we will help Ladakh and everyone there recover from the shock and the pain. I am very sure that all of us want Ladakh to be recovering very soon. Whatever the loss and the pain, we will hold hands together and walk this experience together with great love and support from everywhere.
I want to thank Aamir Khan for his love and concern for our children and our school and I want to thank the school construction for building not only a green structure but also a safe structure. Of course, we have lost many things too and we need to reconstruct many ruins and buy many gadgets, computers, tables and chairs. I am very grateful to everyone who is involved in the relief and aid activities. Pain and suffering do not discriminate, so long as you are in samsara, it's a part of the package. We have to understand this.
Thanks to Indian government, many NGOs and to many volunteers, many cleaning and tidying have been taking place, and many rescue, relief and aid activities have also been happening. Most importantly, I feel is that we should see this as a great teaching of impermanence and of the suffering of samsara. We have lost many things, many loved ones and many precious belongings, therefore we cannot let this experience go to waste. We have to gain something from this unexpected and extremely painful experience and this gain is not something about material or anything to do with the 8 worldly dharmas, but it is the profound understanding of the universal truth. All the enlightened ones, no matter what religion they belong to, no matter what they preach, always tell us that attachment is the biggest suffering, samsara is suffering and that nothing is certain but death. The process of death started the second we were conceived, the minute we were born. But most of us live as though we are going to be around forever. Due to your previously accumulated good karma, some of you are enjoying yourself tremendously, yet when you are having a good time, are you sharing with your family, your friends, your neighbours, your pets and anyone that is connected with you? Do you truly appreciate it? Most of the time, we don't. Only when we lose something and only when our friends and families are gone that we start to regret.
I really hope that I can give a bit of help and encouragement this time at least socialogically. I usually go to Ladakh for celebrations and festivals, and it's not fair if I don't go this time to give Ladakhi people and beings a hand. I know I can't do much by my physical body but thanks to my friends and students around the world, motivated by Live to Love, they are trying to raise around Rs135,000,000 for relief, school and tree planting. Some of it will be dedicated to help to reconstruct those damaged homes and shelters. I hope and pray that they will be able to achieve more than their target. Of course, this is nothing compared to the damage already done, but hopefully it will help a bit. We would definitely like to work together with Indian government and our brothers and sisters in India and everywhere in this world to achieve our goals.
I know natural disasters are very cruel. They are mostly results of our own carelessness and selfish attitude towards our environment, that have resulted in Global Warming. They come in a time that is most unexpected and they destroy everything that we build for many years, sometimes for many hundreds of years. In our tradition, we have this making of sand mandala. It takes ages to make a completed one, very delicate job has to be done by a group of expert practitioners. The colour powder has to be made from natural minerals and stones is also very difficult to be made. At the end of this, we destroy the sand mandala to show that nothing in this world and in this universe is permanent. Nothing! Beautiful things are not permanent, ugly things are not permanent. Mundane happiness and suffering are also not permanent. But we can develop our understanding, our wisdom, our compassion, through this development our mind that is full of understanding will be strong and will be able to cope with the impermanence and suffering of samsara. As I said months ago, that enlightenment which means understanding means strength.
So life is indeed very short, no matter how you look at it. We have to appreciate it and put it to good use so that it will not be wasted. Life is like a burning candle, it can be used to dispell darkness or it can be used to destroy things or you can just let the candle rot and disappear in the air. It all depends on what you want to do with it and how you want to live it. Live To Love, that is the best! I am very happy that along with the headoffice of Live to Love in Hong Kong, we also set up a Live to Love Ladakh Disaster Relief Committee for action and planning, to be led by Jigme Jampal who will be meeting us in Ladakh. See you all soon!
