Soon after Lama Zopa Rinpoche manifested having a stroke, he requested all the monks at Nalanda Monastery France to recite the long Namgyälma mantra and make thousands of offerings. It was quite hard for Rinpoche to make any requests as it was quite difficult for Rinpoche to speak, so it was particularly precious – and Nalanda treated it in that way: Rinpoche said: “… if each monk can do 1,000 times the long Namgyälma mantra. Nalanda can offer 1,000 of each offering (water, flowers, incense, light, perfume, food). To recite this mantra 1,000 times is very powerful; if you can clean well the body, wear clean dress, take Eight Mahayana Precepts, then do the practice, recite that mantra.
“Doing this practice you receive a long life free from sickness. It purifies all obscurations, liberation from hell and so forth, all the lower realms; if an animal hears this mantra, then it is its last rebirth as an animal. This mantra stops rebirth in the lower realms, and after death one gets reborn in Amitabha pure land; it will be the last rebirth in the womb. You will get reborn in the heart of a lotus. Doing this practice is very good for the monks themselves, for liberation from the lower realms.”
Nalanda responded:
“As soon as we got Rinpoche's message we began setting up the gompa with a thousand of each type of offering, which was wonderful to do even if it left little space for people to sit down. It was great fun and most of the Sangha helped in setting things up. I've uploaded a photo album to Picasa for Rinpoche to see, since attaching photos would be far too big.
“From that moment on, we continued with three community sessions a day, and monks were continuing with the recitation in their rooms. A week later we needed the gompa space for sojong, so we took down the very big tables of offerings.
“As May is our study term break, most of the monks began to take a holiday as they'd made flight bookings, etc., but some of the monks here are still continuing with the three sessions a day at Nalanda.
“Those monks who are away for the break have been instructed to continue with the recitation until further instructions come to stop or if the 1,000 long mantras are completed. They've also been sent a copy of the Namgyälma text to continue the practice from a distance.
“So far, some of the monks have completed the 1,000 long Namgyälma mantras, and a few more are close to finishing (by the end of the week). I'm in the process of collecting actual numbers, but as it is continuing daily, it will be changing quickly.
“We plan to reset some large tables of offerings once the monks have returned to Nalanda (by the first week of June), and we will continue with the three sessions a day until Rinpoche's instructions are fulfilled.”
Rinpoche commented a number of times that possibly (possibly) they are the only Westerners who have done 1,000 long Namgyälma mantras, and said he is extremely pleased.
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