My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind email.

The way to practice is first to have guru devotion realizations from your heart, so you see your guru as all the buddhas and all the buddhas are your guru, from your own side, not just for a few days, weeks, months or years, but for it to be stable, like that, without effort. Your guru devotion is stable, so that means the guru and the Buddha are oneness, not separate. There is no guru separate [from the Buddha] and there is no Buddha separate from the guru.

Then you should have realization of renunciation of samsara, as if you are in the midst of a fire while being in samsara, continually reincarnating, with these uncontaminated aggregates caused by delusion and karma, not being free from this. It’s like being in the center of a fire, or your naked body sitting on a thorn bush or being in prison when you don’t want to be in prison, even for a second. It’s like this, without effort from your side, feeling like this not just for weeks, months or years, but stable.

Then also like that having bodhicitta, effortless bodhicitta, the thought to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings day and night, effortlessly arising for weeks, months and years.

Then also emptiness—seeing the I as empty because it is dependent arising. The subtle dependent arising I is existing, but at the same time it is empty from its own side. Oneness. Realizing emptiness only helps the doer, the action doing and the object, and karma—cause and effect, virtue or non-virtue—so it should be like that and not contradictory to that. If what you find is contradictory to that, it means what you have been meditating on, that emptiness, is totally wrong.

On the basis of realization of bodhicitta, then do gross generation stage and subtle generation stage meditations. Then on the base of gross and subtle generation stage realizations, that helps for the completion stage realizations. According to Lama Tsongkhapa, this is the way to go. In other sects it might say without gross and subtle generation stage at all, and just do completion stage. It might say that, but I am not sure.

Otherwise I can’t say, if you have these preliminary realizations or not, you can’t just go without the foundation. You can’t just go to pick up the highest path and meditate on that; you can’t do that, just whatever you like. If people try to meditate on bodhicitta without renunciation, then bodhicitta will just be between the lips. There is no basis for strong compassion, because there is no basis for strong renunciation—to see yourself how samsara is suffering. Then you don’t see the deep sufferings of others, so it’s difficult to generate great compassion.

Otherwise there would be enlightened buddhas, but without having bodhicitta or renunciation or emptiness. How is that possible? It’s like the example of putting some rocks in a pot and saying, “I am making tea,” or trying to build a house on an ice mountain or even trying to walk on the icy mountain.

So this is just my initial response. I will read your email again in more depth later and check the texts.

With much love and prayers...