Lamrim Retreat

Lamrim Retreat

Structure for Long Lamrim Retreat
Date of Advice:
April 2019
Date Posted:
June 2023

Rinpoche gave this advice to a long-time student who was going to do a long retreat and had asked for advice.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
How are you? Thank you very much for the letter and the information. It is very good, whichever language you use, the English or French translation. And Geshe Sopa’s [text] is excellent, as it will expand your wisdom and compassion, not to expand the words but to actualize their meaning.

I am very happy. For the mistakes that happened, you confessed them. That makes you unbelievably free and is the way to achieve liberation and enlightenment.

First read the whole lamrim three times, with study. The things you don’t know or understand, write them down, then ask a geshe or Sangha member who has good knowledge. 

Study the text three times from the beginning to the end and each time you will learn new things. It is said that if we read the Lamrim Chenmo nine times, then nine times we will learn new things.

For four months, meditate on following the virtuous friend correctly by following the outlines. For one week meditate on the benefits, then one week on the shortcomings, and continue like this for the four basic outlines. Circle over these for the four months.

Then for four months, meditate on renunciation, following the lower and middle capable beings’ paths: renouncing this life, looking at the defects of samsara and of future lives. 

Then spend four months on bodhicitta, followed by four months meditating on emptiness.

Do like that five times, the whole thing.

After that, train in perfectly following the virtuous friend effortlessly (before it was effortful) until you have a stable realization, until you see numberless past, present and future buddhas are the guru and all their actions are pure, especially seeing mistaken actions appearing as every single buddha’s actions. Meditate until you have stable realizations.

If you can, doing the same days, before bodhicitta, we need renunciation, the path of the lower capable being, no matter how many months or years it takes. Then the path of the middle capable being and then the graduated path of the higher capable being, bodhicitta, of which there are two techniques. Use whichever one is more effective for you.

Then emptiness, which should be done from now. Do some meditation on emptiness every day, reciting the Heart Sutra or quotations relating to emptiness. Something like that.

First thing in the morning follow the morning motivation, which transforms the mind into Dharma and into bodhicitta. Then blessing the speech.

Then you can do Lama Chöpa. You don’t need to chant, just recite the prayer and do the meditations. If not, do Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga. [Find links to practice materials in the FPMT Catalogue.]

In the evening, at the end of the protector prayers, do the King of Prayers, then it’s so easy to be reborn in the pure land, because you are doing it for all sentient beings, even the ants and mosquitoes that non-Buddhists kill or boil in hot water and eat, like frogs and lobsters.

One thing, whichever your deity is, by reciting the whole path to enlightenment prayer, you leave that positive imprint on your mind.

Every day, morning or evening, do prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas, then Vajrasattva, one (or so) malas or at least twenty-one times, at least with the four opponent powers, making it a perfect confession.

Each month, do self-initiation. There are elaborate, middle and short versions. I am not sure if you have it in English. I doubt it. There is a short version in English. Many Sangha have it and it’s done in Lama Chöpa. My Guru Trijang Rinpoche wrote it. The four initiations are the common one, whereas I’m talking about the uncommon one, not in the prayer.

The other thing, if you have done retreat with fire puja, you can do self-initiation. Then twice each month, on the tsog days, you can do any of the initiations. Those who can, can do the short or the middle one. That makes your life most practical, useful and beneficial, and it is easy to be free of samsara and liberated.

I want to express my billion, million, trillion thanks for building the center. I didn’t get to thank you before. You got to do that by the grace of the Three Rare Sublime Ones. You got help from them for you, one person. And you dedicated your life to the Sangha, so now they can enjoy with one thousand buddhas.

What you did helps many Sangha, even though I didn’t get to contact you much. And it is for all sentient beings.

That’s all!

Thank you very much.

With love and prayers ...

Lamrim Retreat at Lawudo
Date of Advice:
April 2017
Date Posted:
November 2021

Rinpoche sent this message to students who were doing a lamrim retreat at Lawudo Retreat Center in Solu Khumbu, Nepal.

To my dear friends at Lawudo,

Thank you billions of times. Life is very short, so what you are doing, meditating on lamrim, is the very best thing to do. It’s the best way to use your life.

Samsara is the most suffering life. [We have] attachment to this life and the big one on top of that is the ignorance grasping at a truly existent I.

I am sure you have done this retreat with a good motivation for the benefit of all sentient beings—the leeches, mosquitoes, etc—for all of them. A billion thanks to Robina for organizing that retreat.

I am at Maratika where Guru Rinpoche attained immortal life by achieving Amitayus.

With love and prayers ...

Numberless Buddhas and Bodhisattvas Love You
Date of Advice:
July 2017
Date Posted:
June 2020

After completing a three-month retreat, a student wrote to Rinpoche about their realizations and experiences. The student said the retreat had helped with their grief and sadness after losing their mother several years ago. They had thought that no one would ever love them as she did, but now sincerely felt that Tara loved them that much. Rinpoche gave the following advice.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Royal Holloway College, England, 1975. Photo: Dennis Heslop.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, most wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind email. I read it all. How you feel, like when you are about to finish, that you feel just like you are starting retreat, that is also how I feel. It’s very good that you are happy to purify sentient beings.

Your aversion to the president changed, so that is a very good sign, the benefit of retreat. Thank you very much for doing the long-life prayer every day.

You didn’t think logically regarding your mother passing—that no one would love you as much as she did. There are numberless bodhisattvas who love you; they love you a thousand times more than you love yourself. Every second they cherish you more than their own life; they cherish you and all sentient beings the most. That means, of course, numberless buddhas also love you.

You need to think about Dharma widely. The bodhisattvas and buddhas are not limited in qualities. Before they generate bodhicitta, they have to generate compassion for every single sentient being, there is not one left out. Not one slug is left out; not one mosquito is left out; not one spider is left out; not one rat is left out; not one snake is left out; not one cockroach is left out. Like that they have compassion for all the sentient beings, then [wishing] to free them from the oceans of samsaric suffering, so that becomes the basis of bodhicitta.

You haven’t thought enough about the path, the lamrim, the Lesser Vehicle path, the Great Vehicle sutra and Great Vehicle tantra, so it is all contained in the lamrim: the graduated path of the lower capable being, the graduated path of the middle capable being and the graduated path of the higher capable being. This is all contained in the three principal aspects of the path: renunciation, bodhicitta and emptiness.

The basis of great compassion is renunciation—when you think of your own suffering of samsara, then you generate renunciation. Think that all sentient beings are suffering in samsara like you, then compassion is generated, and from there, not only [wishing] to free them from samsara but to bring them to enlightenment, the peerless happiness, by yourself, therefore you need to achieve peerless omniscience. So then the realization of bodhicitta comes.

You have to think more about the path. You know numberless bodhisattvas have great compassion and loving kindness for you. Their compassion and loving kindness for you is more than you love yourself. How much you have for yourself, then of course numberless buddhas’ loving kindness for you is all the time—not only when you are happy and not only when you suffer, they don’t do that. Their loving kindness and compassion is there every second, every split second, thousands more, much more loving kindness and compassion for you and for numberless sentient beings, in every second. You should know that.

This means you didn’t meditate on the lamrim path, not much, otherwise you would know that.

So with the time you have left, reading the lamrim is the best one. Read lamrim—not just like a puja, not like that, trying to finish quickly. Read it mindfully—that is meditation; that is very, very important.

Meditate more on the perfect human body and its usefulness, also impermanence and death, and karma—meditate more on those parts—and then bodhicitta. First meditate on the perfect human body and its usefulness, and the lower path, and secondly, meditate on bodhicitta and then the other one is emptiness. So, in the morning, perfect human rebirth, then in the middle of day, bodhicitta, and in the evening, emptiness.

Please try this.

With much love and prayers ...

Basic Program and Lamrim Retreat
Date Posted:
December 2010

Rinpoche sent the following letter to students who had just completed FPMT’s Basic Program (of Buddhist studies), and a three-month lam-rim retreat. 

To all my dear students and friends who have just finished the Basic Program,
I think this is the best thing that you can achieve in the entire world—having done a three-month lam-rim retreat after having studied the Basic Program for two years. This is really an excellent achievement!

The way this Basic Program is organized, with the three-month retreat at the end, is very, very special. Of course, at universities in different countries, it is possible to study Buddhist philosophy, but there is no retreat involved; no practice is involved.

These two things—study and practice—are key to making the mind familiar with the path to enlightenment. Study and practice give the real taste of the Buddhadharma. In this way, you become the real inner scientist. Even in the great monasteries, where there is extensive learning on the path to enlightenment, after they finish exams there is no such thing as an organized retreat on the Dharma subjects they have studied, except, of course, if an individual plans that way from his or her own side. According to my wrong view, for many monks this does not happen.

Some monks, while studying in the monastery, do practice and meditate on the path, as Dromtönpa expressed: “While I am listening, I am reflecting. While I am reflecting, I am meditating.” There are modern examples, like Geshe Rabten and Lama Yeshe. While Geshe Rabten was in Madhyamaka class, he had realizations of the generation stage of tantra. During the puja in the hall with the monks, he could see himself clearly as Yamantaka. Geshe Rabten expressed this to the recent great meditator Jampa Wangdu, who earlier lived in the monastery as a dob-dob (assistant) and then lived in an isolated place, meditating and living on pills made from flowers. Jampa Wangdu continued his meditation in India and had great success.

For the seven-year Master’s Program I advised doing a one-year lam-rim retreat. In the end, some did it, but only for nine months. Some wanted to do it, but some didn’t understand, and didn’t want to do it. Those who did the retreat discovered great benefit in their own hearts. Students who are not interested in retreat and practice should realize if they want something for their heart, if they love themselves and want to do something to affect their heart, and fill their hearts with great satisfaction, deep joy, and meaning, then this comes from retreat and practice.

I am extremely, extremely pleased. Even in the beginning there were some difficulties, but you all took my advice to do the retreat on lam-rim, so you experienced yourself; you got the real taste in your heart.

This fits with Lama Tsongkhapa’s advice. Lama Tsongkhapa said: “First, you should seek extensive listening of the extensive scriptures. In the middle, all the extensive scriptures should appear as advice (practice). At the end, practice all day and all night. I dedicate it all to the flourishing of the teachings of Buddha.”

So, you see, this fits with what you have done, so I am not crazy! You all have studied the extensive teaching of the Buddha and you have put it into practice by practicing the lam-rim, the stages of the path to enlightenment.

It is mentioned in the lam-rim teachings of the great Kadampa masters that when you are listening, explaining, and reflecting on lam-rim, you are shaking all the teachings of Buddha. This means the lam-rim is the heart of all the Buddha’s teachings. This is the expression used.

So, you can see there is no puzzle here. After studying all the five treatises, there is no confusion. You are not saying, “I don’t know how to practice.” This sort of confusion happens even with many Tibetans—not knowing how to practice or how to integrate their studies, because of the lack of understanding of lam-rim practice. They do not know how to meditate after extensive study, and sometimes they have to ask another lama of another tradition how to meditate.

Why retreat on the lam-rim? Because the lam-rim contains every single teaching of the Buddha, all the teachings of the three vehicles. Even one syllable of a lam-rim teaching can be seen by the practitioner striving to achieve enlightenment as a personal instruction. Not even one syllable should be left out of the Buddha’s teachings. The main goal of every single word of the Buddha is to tame the mind, because your heart and mind are the creators of all the suffering of samsara, including the three lower realms. When you transform your heart, you are the creator of your happiness and peace, liberation and enlightenment.

Why specifically lam-rim retreat? Because it has a very special presentation to subdue the mind. The cause of all suffering of all sentient beings, from where all suffering and problems come, now and in the future, is the mind. If you analyze throughout your life, you will see this clearly. You can also understand this from what the Buddha said:

Do not engage in any harmful actions;
Perform only those that are good;
Subdue your own mind—
This is the teaching of the Buddha.

Whatever you do, if it does not subdue the delusions, it is not Dharma.

Again, from the bottom of my heart, with both my hands, with my ten fingers together, and joined at the heart, I thank all of you billions of times. What you have done is the best gift, the best offering to all the buddhas and bodhisattvas. Doing this kind of retreat—taming the mind through the lam-rim—is the best offering, the best benefit for all sentient beings and the best way to bring world peace.

Ten-Day Lamrim Retreat
Date Posted:
December 2010

A student did a master’s program at university on death and dying and wrote to Rinpoche asking how to use it. She was also doing a ten-day retreat and asked what to focus on in the retreat.

My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. Sorry for the long delay in replying.

Regarding your question about guidance regarding death and dying (having just finished your Masters on this)—make notes of your experience so that you can help others and so that your notes can help others. These can be used to help people in the future

Regarding your ten-day retreat, it would be very good if you can do a lam-rim retreat, doing prostrations and reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names, Guru Puja, or if this is too long, then Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga, also Six-Session Guru Yoga (as you have taken highest tantra initiations). In each session you do guru yoga as a base—spend a little time making the mandala offering. You can do prostrations within the session or before, then before the guru absorbs into you, this is when you stop and meditate on the lamrim. You can read lamrim books, either “the Great Lamrim” (Lamrim Chenmo) or Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. Each session, you can read from this, but don’t read like you are doing a puja, read like it is a meditation. Read slowly and think about the meaning, relate it to your own life. Then make notes in a book of any questions that come up. Also, you can note any very moving experiences that you have. This can help you in your meditations. Please put effort into bodhicitta, renunciation, guru devotion, emptiness, and so forth.

After lunch you can circumambulate the stupa, reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names, Vajrasattva mantra, or Chenrezig mantra (OM MANI PADME HUM).

Do everything, every action, as much as possible, for sentient beings, for numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, humans, suras, asuras, and intermediate state beings—everyone except yourself. When you do this for others, then you are taken care of by the buddhas and bodhisattvas and sentient beings.

Before going to bed recite the King of Prayers, or you can recite a different prayer from the eight great prayers. You can also recite the Lama Tsongkhapa prayer; this is a very powerful one. At night, recite one mala of the long Vajrasattva mantra with the four powers as well. This would be great.

As much as possible, try to do everything with a bodhicitta motivation. From when you wake up until you go to bed, do everything with bodhicitta.

This should be a great retreat, because you are going through the whole lamrim, it should be unbelievable. Maybe when you come down from the retreat center your feet won’t touch the ground. You can come down without needing a car.

Regarding your yidam, I checked, and for your quickest enlightenment, so that you can enlighten all sentient beings most quickly, the deities to practice are:

  • Guhyasamaja
  • Yamantaka
  • Heruka
  • Vajrayogini

Whichever of these you feel more strongly about, that is your yidam. Then, in the future, because all of these came out as good, you can take the other initiations, chant the mantras, etc. But the one you feel strongest about you can do as your main practice.

With much love and prayers ...

Progress in Retreat
Date Posted:
November 2009

Rinpoche sent the following letter to a student who had been in retreat for 15 months.

The meaning of our lives is to achieve enlightenment in order to enlighten all sentient beings. This is the only reason for living and the only goal. When we have this motivation, everything we do is meaningful – walking, sleeping, talking, even having a breakfast of Vegemite or French fries!

You are making the best progress in your retreat because you are seeing the lam-rim more and more deeply. This means your retreat is benefiting your mind. You have developed a very deep realization of how terrible samsara is. You understand it is nothing but suffering. You know you have experienced rebirth in samsara numberless times and continuing to reincarnate in samsara is incredibly unbearable and disgusting.

This sort of realization is very important. We need to experience the suffering of samsara as unbearable and totally in the nature of suffering – not only the suffering of pain and the suffering of change, but also pervasive compounded suffering. This means the aggregates themselves are in the very nature of suffering.

Not only is samsara in the nature of suffering, but what we perceive as happiness often results from committing negative actions. These negative actions plant seeds of delusion in our minds. More delusion arises from that seed, and more negative karma arises from that delusion. In this way, we constantly create the cause of compounded suffering.

Being in samsara is unbearable, like being in a fire or drowning in a septic tank. The delusions are awful. Attachment is particularly terrible, like a poisonous snake that kills you instantly. But even if you are bitten by all the snakes in the world, all that happens is you are separated from your body in this life. Dying from a snakebite doesn’t prevent you from generating virtuous thoughts, being liberated, or achieving enlightenment. Just being bitten by a snake and dying from it doesn’t cause you to be born in the lower realms. Snakebites are not a condition for being born in the lower realms; delusions cause us to be born in the lower realms. First, we have delusion, and that delusion creates negative karma. That negative karma is the cause of being born in the lower realms. Therefore, delusion is more dangerous than an atomic bomb. It harms you and numberless sentient beings, and it has been harming you for countless lifetimes. If you don’t eliminate your delusion, it will continue to directly and indirectly harm you and sentient beings forever. This is much worse than a billion atomic bombs. This is the essence of what I am saying.

Realizing how harmful the delusions are and generating disgust for them is an excellent foundation for realizing shamatha – calm abiding. Once you realize how unbearable samsara is, you are less distracted by scattering thoughts of attachment. There is less disturbance in your mind. The more you renounce delusion and the suffering nature of samsara, the more content and peaceful the mind becomes. Then it is so easy to achieve calm abiding.

The more you realize renunciation from samsara and feel how harmful the delusions are, the more you can truly see the suffering of sentient beings. You can feel others’ suffering so clearly. In this way, your compassion becomes stronger and it is very easy to generate bodhicitta, which leads you to enlightenment. Once you are enlightened, you can enlighten all sentient beings.

Normally, in this world, someone is considered a hero if he or she defeats many countries in battle. However, how can we regard that person as a hero when he or she has to suffer the karmic results of those actions for eons? How can this person who is now suffering inconceivably in the hell realms be considered a hero? That person is not a hero at all.

Every day, the lam-rim meditator defeats delusions. Actually, when I was dictating this letter, I accidentally said “defeats lam-rim.” That is what I have been practicing and what many of us are practicing all the time. We are not practicing the cause of happiness and making the mind the source of happiness. All your happiness, from momentary happiness up to your enlightenment and the enlightenment of all sentient beings, comes from your lam-rim realizations.

The problem is that we follow what our self-cherishing wants and what our attachment wants. Our ignorance trusts our self-cherishing. Our ignorance thinks our self-cherishing is truly existent. Because of this, we cannot realize guru devotion, the three principal aspects of the path, or anything else.

Defeat the delusions every day. As soon as you defeat the delusions, even if you can only do it once a month, you become the greatest victor. Normally, warriors who kill hundreds of thousands and millions of people are called great champions, but they never defeat the inner enemy of delusion. Instead, they follow that inner enemy their whole lives. You can see the huge difference between the normal warrior and the lam-rim meditator. The lam-rim meditator is actually making war on the delusions. By actualizing the lam-rim path, he or she is making war in the world of the mind and defeating the real enemy.

It is only by actualizing the lam-rim path and completely eliminating the cause of delusion, the negative imprints, that you are able to free yourself forever from delusions. Once you do that, you are totally free from the oceans of each realm’s suffering and you have no outside enemies. You have no outside enemies because you have not created the cause to receive harm from others, and that lasts forever. This makes you the greatest champion, because then you are able to bring numberless sentient beings of the six realms to the peerless happiness of enlightenment.

Those who have sacrificed their lives to meditate on the lam-rim are the real champions. This is also the real work for world peace. Taming your own mind brings peace to the world, to numberless sentient beings. This is what brings light to their hearts and to their lives.

Every morning when you get up, remember that you are working for world peace. You are giving peace to sentient beings and you will continue working for them by meditating on the lam-rim. Whatever action you do – not only during the sessions, but also in the break time when you are washing or going to the toilet or whatever – remember to think like this. Your motivation is to benefit every single sentient being in this world, including your family, all the terrorists, all the people who are violent, those who are torturing others, those who are suffering, those who are sick, those who are dying today, the millions of people who are dying of cancer, etc. You are benefiting every single one – every fish, every shellfish, every animal living in the water or on the beach, every single fly, all those suffering in Africa where the people are chopping up other human beings, terrifying, killing, and raping others.

Every day during Guru Puja when you are taking the bodhisattva vows, remember how you are benefiting sentient beings. When you chant one mala of OM MANI PÄDME HUM or even just a few mantras, make sure you do it with a bodhicitta motivation to benefit all sentient beings. Every mantra you recite, every meditation you do, everything you do in your house or outside, every time you see a bird, every time you walk, do it with a bodhicitta motivation. Then you are truly benefiting others.

Even though meditating on the lam-rim and defeating the delusions doesn’t stop suffering right away, taming the mind sets a precedent. Every time you defeat delusion for even one minute, every time you practice patience or renunciation, every time you avoid desire, every time you meditate on dependent arising, every time you see things as empty, every time you avoid the ignorance grasping at true existence – this leads you to total cessation of suffering and the cause of suffering: delusion and karma. By renouncing samsara, actualizing the path, and directly perceiving emptiness, you are able to offer so many qualities to benefit others. You are able to liberate others from the cause of suffering and lead them to enlightenment. Each day you practice Dharma – guru devotion, the three principles of the path, bodhicitta, and tantra – you come closer to being able to liberate others.

Generate bodhicitta in every motivation. Then, definitely, everything you do leads to enlightenment. Once you reach enlightenment, you have all qualities, all realizations, perfect understanding omniscience, perfect compassion, and perfect power to be able to perfectly liberate all sentient beings and bring them to enlightenment. You are able to perform perfect works for sentient beings spontaneously and without effort.

This is how practicing the lam-rim allows us to benefit every single sentient being. If you can practice like this, that would be amazing! Normally, people think that becoming king of a country or defeating other countries is something unbelievable, but in reality, if you don’t renounce the cause of suffering, you have nothing.

Each time you do a lam-rim meditation, you remove the cause of suffering. In the beginning, generate a bodhicitta motivation to be able to end the cause of suffering forever. Think that every minute sentient beings stay in samsara is unbearable. Especially now that you are able to live in an isolated place, free from distractions, you should meditate on the lam-rim every day, every minute. This is the practice.

To me, the most important thing in the world is dedicating our lives to achieving the lam-rim, the root of the path, which is guru devotion, the three principles of the path, and the common and uncommon two stages, with the goal to liberate numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, suras, and asuras from the oceans of suffering of each realm and bring them to enlightenment.

Great scholars and great pandits have so much knowledge. They know everything by heart – even the entire Kangyur and Tengyur – and know everything about the four traditions and also Bön, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, etc. But if they are not meditating on the path, not practicing Dharma, not overcoming and destroying delusions, which are their own inner enemy and the outer enemy of all sentient beings, even though they know so much, their lives do not have much meaning. Their lives are empty. If they are not practicing, their minds become like a library, but that is all. They are not making their minds useful even for liberating themselves, not to mention achieving enlightenment and enlightening all sentient beings. They don’t use their knowledge even to achieve a good rebirth in the next life and avoid rebirth in the lower realms, which is the minimum requirement for practicing Dharma. Therefore, their lives are totally empty. It is like collecting all the medicine in the world and storing it up, but not taking it when you are sick. It is like buying all the food in the world, but not eating it and then dying of starvation.

Defeating anger or attachment even one time is better than winning the Olympics a billion times! Defeating one negative imprint plants a seed in your mental continuum and that becomes one less negative karma you have to experience. If you do not defeat it, delusion arises again and again from that negative imprint, and you have to circle in samsara and continuously experience the suffering results for so many lifetimes. From that one negative karma, you experience hundreds of thousands of lifetimes of suffering. Not only that, you also develop the habit of repeating that negative action again in each lifetime, and in this way you create suffering again and again for so many future lifetimes.

But you don’t have to experience this. You are free. Olympic champions don’t receive this benefit even if they win a billion times. If they win and they do it with attachment, pride, or clinging to this life, then their winning is negative karma and it brings them closer to the lower realms.

Try to develop renunciation, compassion, bodhicitta, and emptiness during your retreat. You should generate a strong feeling of the lam-rim at the beginning of your sessions. It doesn’t have to take long; just five minutes. Missing the opportunity to practice like this is worse than having lost billions of dollars!

With much love and prayers,

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