Our precious teacher Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrote this Long Life Amitayus sutra, to recover movement of his right hand after a stroke. He wrote everyday. He explained that there are benefits in writing and reading the sutra everyday. Healing, purification, and generation of merits.
At the end of this letter he says
"This was written by my right hand, to show progression due to your kind prayers and dedication. 20 Nov 2011."
What do you know?
In my Buddhist centre I saw, today, that we had books with the Long Life Mantra. The books were in Golden covers, and I was so curious to see the books. Among the two books that we received, one was the book with a Long Life Mantra. Long life Tse. Do Mantra Book - Unfathomable Exalted Life and transcendental Wisdom. The second book was The Noble Mahayana Sangata Sutra Dharma Prayaya.
Both the books were sent as Free Distribution books by the Amitabha Buddhist Centrem in Singapore. The thing about these books are that they are lettered in light grey and not in the usual black that texts usually come in. I was so curious as to why. One part of me told me that they had sent out a bad print job book to us. (bad karma already I know) but a friend explained that this was so that we all can write over the light grey letters with a golden pen, making our work sacred. I fell in love with the idea.
What a wonderful way of getting people to, rather encouraging people to be on the path of Dharma. I am so grateful to them, for doing so much for students around the world, and ever so grateful to Precious teachers HHThe Dalai Lama and Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Anyway, I know that people in my centre are actually working on the texts. My mother too is writing a long life sutra book for HHTDL.