My dear one,
This will be your morning practice.
In the morning, the first thing is to rejoice, thinking, “I didn’t die, especially today. Today I have a precious human body, especially, a perfect human rebirth.” Here, you rejoice in each one of the ten richnesses, thinking how precious each one is. Then, make a strong determination to practice Dharma on the basis of correctly devoting to the virtuous friend. This is the basis of the Hinayana, then the Mahayana, then tantra. Even though you’re not engaged so much in tantra now, this is for the future.
Think about impermanence and death. Death can happen any moment, even today, within this hour, even in the next minute. So, what can one do? Think, “I must renounce the ‘I’ and cherish others, because all suffering comes from the ‘I,’ while all virtue and happiness, up to enlightenment, comes from cherishing others. So, others are the most precious beings in my life.” You can do these meditations while reciting the Chenrezig mantra, OM MANI PADME HUM. In order to better understand the disadvantages of cherishing the “I” and the advantages of cherishing others, you can read some of the talks I’ve given in the past.
At this stage, after doing the meditation on giving up the “I” and cherishing others, you can practice tong-len. You can read about this practice in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. After doing tong-len, make the determination that there is nothing else to do but cherish all sentient beings. Then think, “What sentient beings need is happiness. What they don’t need is suffering. I must free them all from suffering and its causes and bring them to enlightenment. Therefore, I am going to do all the virtuous practices and activities for that purpose. (“Virtuous practice” here means traditional practices such as mandala offerings, etc. “Activities” here means eating, sleeping, working, etc, which are not normally labeled virtuous).
So, this becomes your daily motivation for the rest of your life’s activities. Also, it becomes part of the practice of integrating your whole life into the practice of the five powers. Of these five powers, this is the power of the attitude of life, the way of turning one’s actions into bodhicitta, such that all actions naturally become the cause of enlightenment. Also, in this way, if you have a commitment to recite OM MANI PADME HUM, it gets done at the same time. If you’re able to recite ten malas a day, that is best. But if you’re able to do more, of course, that is still better. So, the practice is done together with many things.
In addition, before the main meditation in the morning, you can do prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas. This is done by repeating each name of the Buddha three times in a row continuously while prostrating. When you’re lying flat on the ground, you go to the name of the next Buddha. Afterwards, recite the names of the seven medicine Buddhas. Then complete the rest of the confessional prayer that includes the four opponent powers. If you have time, you can do the general confession after this. At the end, you can do the praise to Chenrezig that comes from the Nyung-nä practice, which gets recited while doing prostrations.
There may be occasional days when you aren’t able to do this meditation practice, but if in general you can keep doing it, it will have an incredible result. This kind of practice will bring you to the pure land at the time of death, or to another great rebirth—one of the best rebirths. And, of course, in this way, you liberate sentient beings quicker from the ocean of samsaric suffering.
At this point, you need to meditate on the actual body of the lam-rim on the basis of guru yoga. Therefore, you need to practice guru yoga. The purpose of this practice is to receive the blessing of the guru. For this, you can use the practice that I put together. Later, when you have received a great initiation of highest tantra, you can do Lama Chöpa combined with Jorchö. When you do the lam-rim prayer which is in Lama Chöpa, meditate on guru devotion when you recite the first verse of the prayer or after you have completed the prayer, which becomes a direct meditation if you recite it mindfully. You can do the same with other parts of lam-rim meditation, such as the perfect human rebirth.
Every day before you go to bed, you should again recite the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas three times quickly, without repeating them. Then recite one mala of the Vajrasattva mantra, either while prostrating or while sitting and doing the visualization. If you do the mantra recitation with prostrations, two very powerful methods are combined. Then, generate strong faith that all negative karmas are being purified. The stronger one’s faith is here, the more one is able to purify.
My advice is that everyone who wants happiness and doesn’t want suffering should practice Chenrezig meditation to develop compassion for sentient beings, and practice Medicine Buddha for success.
After doing purification practice in the evening, make an extensive dedication, including the King of Prayers. The other very important prayer is Lama Tsongkhapa’s “taking the essence day and night,” that is, whatever section of the lam-rim you are trying to actualize, to use that in your daily activities, to perform your daily activities with that thought. During your actual sitting time, as well as in the break time, try to have the continuous thought of the lam-rim meditation that was practiced in the morning. These might include, for example, guru devotion, renunciation of samasara, bodhicitta, the kindness of sentient beings, suffering, or emptiness—looking at the self and object as dreams, how one sees them as truly existent while they are not.
The main emphasis should be on cultivating bodhicitta. Your sitting mediation and all the activities in the day should be performed with the mind of bodhicitta; the thought to benefit others should be the heart of your practice twenty-four hours a day. That involves watching and checking your mind twenty-four hours a day, each day of your life.
Studying or working for a Dharma center means working for the teachings and for sentient beings, so working for a center accomplishes both services.
