My very dear Tenzin,
I was very happy to receive your letter. I’m sorry it took many eons to reply.
Please try to practice like this:
30,000 tong-len practice by reciting the verse in Lama Chöpa or Nagarjuna’s prayer: “May whatever suffering sentient beings have, ripen on me. May whatever happiness I have, ripen on other sentient beings.” The counting is not to do with the prayer, but mainly to do with the meditation.
Regarding lam-rim, please focus on these subjects for this amount of time:
- Two months: lower path
- Four months: middle path
- Four months: bodhicitta
- Two months: emptiness
Do this three times, training your mind in guru devotion every day. The length of time you do it is up to you. Also do some meditation on emptiness every day. Before you die, try to have realization of guru devotion, renunciation, bodhicitta and right view. If not all four, then three, two or one.
Train your mind on the lam-rim subjects one-by-one, starting with perfect human rebirth, no matter how many months it takes, until you achieve stable realization.
I’m not sure which deity was chosen in the past, perhaps by another lama, but my suggestion is Heruka Five-Deity. Spend more time on the lam-rim, until you actualize bodhicitta. First generate renunciation for this life and future lives, then you must actualize bodhicitta. Then spend more time in the generation and then completion stage tantric practice. Practice the sadhanas to train your mind in the tantric path, whatever commitments you had in the past. If you don’t have time to do the long sadhanas, do the short ones, but try to do the long sadhana of your main deity.
There’s the generation stage, then the completion stage. You might be able to do the Six Yogas of Naropa in relation to Heruka practice, but without renunciation and bodhicitta, even though you might have some experiences, you can’t complete the path. The best is to actualize bodhicitta. Do everything with a bodhicitta motivation, living your life with that, not only during meditation sessions.
It’s very good to do Vajrasattva and prostrations by reciting the Thirty-Five Buddhas’ names. Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand has more explanation on the preliminary practices.
Do guru devotion meditation on the basis of Lama Chöpa or Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga. Make offerings and do prostrations, then start the day with Lama Chöpa. Or you can do Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga in the evening.
It’s good to recite the King of Prayers at the end of the day; this is unbelievable in purifying even the heavy negative karmas that result in rebirth in hell without interruption of another life. The five uninterrupted negative karmas are: having killed one’s mother, father or an arhat, drawn blood from the Buddha or caused disunity among the Sangha, in this life and in past lives. With the King of Prayers, it’s easy to be born in the Amitabha pure land when we die.
Do good dedication at the end of the day, right after your practice.
“Due to all the three-time merits collected by me and by buddhas, bodhisattvas and all other sentient beings, may I, my family and all sentient beings generate bodhicitta, and may those who have developed it, increase it.”
“Due to the all the three-time merits collected by me, and by buddhas, bodhisattvas and all other sentient beings, which are empty, may the I, who is empty, achieve one’s deity’s enlightenment, which is empty, and lead all sentient beings, who are empty, to that deity’s enlightenment, which is empty, by myself alone, who is also empty from its own side.”
So that’s it. It’s most important to make every activity Dharma —eating, walking, sleeping and working. Make every activity not only Dharma, but also the cause of enlightenment. As much as possible, attempt to do everything with a bodhicitta motivation; not only your meditation and prayers.
Reading Lama Tsongkhapa’s Middle Lam-Rim, Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand or other lam-rim texts is very good. Reading and thinking about the Bodhicaryavatara is also very, very good, very helpful.
With much love and prayers...
