As master of Dharma, I have a second mission. It also in the realm of suffering, not suffering on the relative level this time, but on an ultimate level, the very causes of suffering. The root cause of all our pains is fundamental ignorance. Our erroneous understanding of reality maintains destructive states of mind, such as hatred, attachment, desire, jealousy, and anger. These emotions carry on the cycle of suffering and make us turn our backs on happiness. My mission is therefore to unceasingly provide the teachings that deliver us from ignorance by conquering our inner enemies. Believing in adversity is a terrible illusion. The enemies that appear outside of us are the projection of our uncontrolled mind. When we have overcome all our inner demons, nothing affects us anymore.

The Buddha’s life , offers several examples of the perfectly mastered power of the mind. One day, out of jealousy, his cousin Devadatta launched against him one of the most ferocious elephants, thinking the animal would pierce him with his tusks or trample him . But as it approached the Awakened, the elephant knelt down. Then, on the night of Buddha’s Awakening, the demon of death, Mara, sent the anger of the winds against the great meditator. But though their fury could uproot trees, the winds did not crumpled a fold of his robe. Mara then called torrential rains, which racked the earth. They did not wet a single fiber of the Buddha’s clothes. And when, in the end, Mara ordered his troops to destroy the Awakened, the arrows became flowers at the touch of his body. The light radiating from him was like a shield protecting him, so that the swords were broken, and the axes were nicked. Such is the power of the mind when established in primordial peace. With my training, since my first years at Golok Monastery, and with the experience of my remarkable healing, I must now especially teach inner peace, which reveals the mind’s boundless power of healing . If possible, I want to encourage therapists and doctors to integrate the spiritual dimension of the human beings into their understanding of illness and care giving. This is my second mission as a teacher of Dharma, since my healing, to be complete, must be dedicated to the ultimate healing of all lives. I have vowed to heal in the name of all beings. This vow is been fulfilled, Sofia, with the testimony of this book . I have shared this life experience with you in order to help my readers better recognize the power of their own mind.

These words of Phakyab Rinpoche resonate like the call of a guru from the heart of compassion. They wrap us in a powerful vibration that reaches from era to era, en echoes through the memory of worlds, in this life and in all lives.

And at last, Rinpoche says, I have a third mission, as holder of a lineage. Acknowledge as the Eighth Phakyab Rinpoche by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, I must preserve a spiritual filiation and carry on the memory of my lineage, of these extraordinary teachers who made the offerings of all their lives to all beings before me. For I am the holder of the throne of Ashi Monastery, blessed by the heart relics of Je Tsongkhapa, which someTibetans saved from destruction by the Red Guards at the peril of their lives. In the past few years, thanks to the generosity of my students, I have been able to rebuild Je Tsongkhapa’s chapel, and soon I hope to be able to set up a patronage program to ensure sufficient amount of daily food for the monks of Ashi.