I want to say to all of you who are working so hard to keep your promise to carry out "Live to Love" activities, "You are doing a great job!" Thank you for fulfilling my wishes and making my life more meaningful. I was particularly happy that now, even my nuns in Kathmandu are beginning to feel the positive effect of their formal practice. I was told that some of my nuns were extremely happy to be able to help the villagers in very practical way, like giving them blankets, giving schoolbags to the children and now they are thinking of giving rice to these poor people too.

I always say that being generous with a big heart makes you gain more than you can ever think of. It adds meaning and values to your own life. This is why in this degenerate time, we need to be living with love all the time to remind ourselves of our own values and of how to have a good heart. Happiness doesn't come freely. The bigger your heart, the happier you are. But of course, smartness should always be there. Love without eyes will make you suffer like nobody's business. "Live to Love" is something you have to do with good eyesight. I hope you understand what I am saying here.

These days, being a spiritual master is a very tough job. How to link spirituality and daily life? Most people feel that spirituality means meditation, praying, cutting yourself from the outside world, doing nothing except trying your best to keep your mind blank. I feel that this is not genuine spirituality, this is life of a plastic or a robot. Developing spirituality essentially is the process of developing your own nature of goodness, love, kindness and all the positive points. That adds life and meaning to your existence. Have you ever imagined a life without spirituality?

One other thing I want to say about "Live to Love" is that you have to keep it going. Many times, I find that my friends and students have the tendency to start something very nicely and then slowly by slowly, the interest starts to go away, and then gradually they even forget their promise to do at least something good, something that is related to "Live to Love", once a month, on the 3rd Sunday of each month. If you can keep this loving thoughts and put them into actions all the time, it would be a tremendous support for you in your life, it will give you strength and make you look beyond your own problems and self-related obstacles. That itself would give you tremendous freedom and that freedom would give you great happiness at the end of the day.

I was very touched by the spontaneous action by Ewa from Poland and Nina from Germany to practise "Live to Love" when they helped a dying woman in a street near the Boudanath Stupa. That is "Live to Love". I was also very happy to read that Drukpa Butterworth, Drukpa Penang, Drukpa Hamburg and several other Drukpa centres were keeping their commitment to plant trees, help the homeless people and the poor people etc. Yes, I know that you cannot help everybody, but at least you are doing something for someone, for some beings, for some other less fortunate ones in the society. If everyone can do this, wouldn't the world be transformed into a wonderful pure land of joy and happiness?

I spoke about the difficulties we are facing to protect, guard and keep a lineage like ours, the 800-year-old legacy. It is not only about the threats from outside, it's also about the threats of people not wanting to receive the support of spirituality. People mostly prefer to live in temporary and illusive happiness and they are not prepared to share with others, they are not prepared to reach out to others, instead they are more than prepared to take, to enlarge their territories, to increase their properties and material wealth, without considering others who are affected by their actions and activities. I am not saying that being ambitious is completely a bad idea, I am saying that being ambitious at the painful cost of others, is really not what a genuine spiritual practitioner should be doing. That's why it is so difficult to protect and keep a lineage, to keep one's own commitment to spiritual practice, to the beneficial activities. Masters like us sometime feel very disappointed with the conditions that we have to work so hard in, and yet we get either no result or very little progress.

People are more attracted to spiritual masters who are expert in 8 worldly dharmas than those who are expert in genuine spirituality that will take them to the ultimate path of happiness. What to do? Now even genuine masters have to be drawn into the worldly dharmas, how sad this is? If you are tremendously successful in the worldly dharmas, you get almost everything - wealth, fame, support, bunch of followers etc. You don't even need to recite a mantra correctly, you just need to be good looking, tall, handsome or beautiful, speaking very smartly, doing all the things like movie stars, then 100% you will be having lots of followers. The more unique you are, the more charisma you have, the more you will gain. I think, our mad yogi Drukpa Kunleg will never be to help anyone and benefit the lineage in this very peculiar time.

Anyway, in the ancient times, masters used to be giving such a hard time to their disciples. I am sure you all are familiar with the story of Marpa and Milarepa. I can tell you that Marpa's style of training will not work now. If he comes to our world and teach like the way he was teaching Milarepa, I think he may be sued by the disciples for abuse and all kinds of funny things. Maybe Marpa could be jailed. So now, gurus have to be so nice to the disciples, so polite, so sweet, so accommodative, so soft. Gurus even have to beg the disciples to practise. I can tell you that generally it is very difficult to keep and guard a genuine spiritual tradition.

So, I hope and pray that for those people who are doing such a good job carrying out "Live to Love" on every 3rd Sunday or on any one day, to help human beings or animals, they will be able to keep up these virtuous deeds. I pray that after 3 months or 1 year, I can still see updates on the Live to Love website. To tell you the truth, there aren't many things in this world that are making me happy. Besides those Rinpoches, Tulkus, nuns and monks who are doing a great job by following my instructions and by observing the vows strictly, one of the rare moments of happiness is when I go to the Live to Love website to read about all these activities that my friends and students are doing.

May you all continue your good job!