My most dear one,
I am very happy to receive your long letter explaining your life story. That is important, thank you; it gives me a clear idea and understanding.

I checked and your special deity came out as Yamantaka. This is who you have a connection with, for your quickest enlightenment, also the deity Kurukulla. Practice in order to control sentient beings so you can bring them to the Dharma (to enlightenment) and in order to benefit sentient beings and the teachings of Buddha. The most important thing is to have total control over the gross mind and especially the subtle mind.

I am not sure if you have received a great initiation in Highest Yoga Tantra before. If you have, you can take the initiation for Kurukulla. If you haven't, you need to take the Yamantaka initiation first and after that take Kurukulla initiation. After you have received these initiations, read and study the commentary and do the practice.

It would be very good to plan to do 300 nyung näs in your life. This would be most powerful for purification, to collect extensive merits, especially to generate great compassion for others and to generate bodhicitta. This is how all your wishes are fulfilled, all the way up to enlightenment, in the quickest way. It is a dynamic practice! Within it take the eight Mahayana vows, for purifying and restoring. These are most powerful if taken with the mind of bodhicitta, and with each vow that you take, you collect limitless skies of merits. This is most beneficial for all sentient beings in this world and this country, the USA. It is also most powerful for purifying the negative karma collected during beginningless rebirths. This is also how you create the cause for achieving enlightenment.

Within the practice there are lots of prostrations by reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names and by prostrating to Chenrezig. You receive merit as if you had prostrated to numberless buddhas. Also, there is the Chenrezig sadhana and mantra recitation. Wow—unbelievable merit, skies of merit and purification are achieved by doing this practice.

You can also meditate on the lamrim along with practicing the nyung-näs. The lamrim is the actual essence of all the practices, in order to achieve enlightenment for numberless sentient beings. Use the outline from the Lamrim Chenmo by Lama Tsongkhapa as a base on which to meditate, and the commentary to the Lamrim Chenmo by Geshe Sopa, also the Middle lamrim, and Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. In Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand there is more explanation on the preliminary practices, so it is very useful.

This is what came out best for you to do, in regards to lamrim meditation: 

• Ten months on guru devotion
• Three months on the lower capable being’s path
• Two months on the middle capable being’s path
• Ten months on bodhicitta
• Three months on emptiness

When you have finished these, start again from the beginning, and circle like this until you have stable realizations. It means that for this number of months that is the main subject on which to focus. You can also do other lamrim meditations, but mainly focus on this subject for this length of time. Start now if you have read the whole lamrim before, and if you haven’t read the whole lamrim, then start by reading the lamrim once from the beginning to the end.

Please also read Geshe Sopa’s commentary on the Lamrim Chenmo.

This is what makes your life most successful and it is the real practice in order to achieve the path to enlightenment. If you do not practice this, your precious life is lost. If you don’t meditate on the lamrim, which is the real practice, you are not on the road going to enlightenment, step by step, which is the only way. First, there is renunciation of this life, then renunciation of the next life, then bodhicitta, then emptiness.

Basing it all on bodhicitta and emptiness, the best is to have the realizations, then to practice tantra after that. If you have the realizations of the lamrim, or at least some understanding or feeling of it, then on that basis you can practice tantra. If you do it this way, then tantric practice comes out correctly, otherwise it doesn't.

Practice the lamrim every day, based on the Lama Chopa (Guru Puja). After you finish the lamrim prayer at the end, stop and meditate on the lamrim, in whatever section you are up to, without dissolving the merit field. Stop just before the merit field absorbs into you and practice the lamrim meditation. After this lamrim meditation, dissolve the merit field into yourself.

Do two lamrim sessions a day, depending on your time. The second session can be in the evening, morning or afternoon. If you have time, do three or four sessions a day; it depends on your time, whether you need to work and so forth. So, you decide. If you are doing more than one session, don’t dissolve the merit field until the very end.

With big love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

P.S. Please try to make all your activities become Dharma, as much as possible. This is the cause of enlightenment and the real purpose of your life. With billion and zillions of thanks. If you live life in this way it benefits you and especially others—numberless sentient beings.

To have success in your life, it also comes out very good if you can recite the Padmasambhava prayer every day, for 1) quick success and 2) controlling appearances. Also, it is important to do the Four Mandala Offering Puja to Tara.

For spirits, chant the mantra OM MANI PADME HUM (Compassion Buddha mantra), then any other mantras, like Maitreya Buddha mantra and the five powerful mantras of purification (you can get these from the FPMT Education Department). These are:

• Stainless Lotus Pinnacle mantra
• Namgyalma mantra
• Mitukpa mantra
• Kunrig mantra
• Stainless Pinnacle Deity mantra

Also recite the Medicine Buddha mantra. If you know other mantras, chant them too. Then, also explain Dharma to the spirits, such as reciting prayers—prayers about emptiness (the Heart Sutra), bodhicitta prayers, lamrim prayers and prayers on the tantric stages of the path. This is to plant the seed of Dharma in their minds. Thanks!

Just one more thing in regards to your lamrim meditations: in the Lamrim Chenmo, the subject of shunyata (emptiness) is a huge subject, so it can be shortened. If you follow the outline of Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, that gives the essential understanding of emptiness.