Member of the FPMT

Practice Advice	[posted June 2008]
A nun and longtime student had the following questions for Rinpoche. Her questions and his advice are below.

Student: My mother very much wants me to live with her and take care of her in her old age. Is this more important than doing retreat or teaching?

Rinpoche: It is more beneficial to benefit many beings by teaching or practicing Dharma.

Student: I don’t feel comfortable teaching tantra (or even sutra really). I do not wish to be a guru and, according to what I understand, when one teaches tantra, immediately the guru-disciple relationship is formed. If I teach tantra to someone and then that person develops a negative mind towards me or treats me with disrespect, then this is unfortunate karma for both of us.

Rinpoche: If you do not give initiations or commentary, but just answer questions and lead discussions, then this does not create that special guru-disciple relationship.

Just live and teach and do what you think is best to benefit beings through the Dharma. Just do that for some time, a few years. That is all. It is not like a retreat; you don’t have to do it for a specific amount of time. Just live life and do what you see is best.

Student: I have a plan to do the 108 springs retreat (Chod).

Rinpoche: It would be extremely beneficial for you to live, do retreat, and teach in that place. Not only do Chod, but do Sur, and give charity to the spirits in the water practice.

Being a Monk	[posted June 2008]
Below is a letter Rinpoche wrote to a monk living in Europe. The advice was written on four postcards, one of which had a picture of hundreds of sunflowers in South Dakota.

My very dear Tim,
I don’t know your holy monk name, sorry. I think you definitely should try to achieve shiné in this life and try to complete some Dzogrim (not Dzogchen, the wife. That is too confusing). You have a very good opportunity as a monk. You can create vast amounts of merit, which makes achieving enlightenment quicker, and with less obstacles. By living in this condition, having vows, the merit you create with every practice you do increases so much. For you it is better to be a monk. Let go of the other life, the attachment. If you don’t achieve something in this life, there is no other time for it.

Otherwise, you will experience the suffering of samsara without end. Do you really like that or not? Also, you cannot do perfect work for others without being liberated yourself from samsara and from the subtle defilements. Maybe it might be good for you to do shiné retreat at a retreat center. I plan to buy 300 acres of land in New York. You could also do it in Lawudo or in Dharamsala.

All these sunflowers are happily waiting for you to achieve enlightenment.
With much love and prayer...

With regard to your meditation, you can train your mind in the generation stage until you sees all gurus as Buddha and all buddhas as the guru. Do this until you have very strong, stable devotion – not the devotion that arises after just a few hours or a few days, but devotion that arises spontaneously from the heart. You must work every day on guru devotion. This should be your fundamental practice.

In addition to that, until you feel that all the aims of this life are not important and you have no wish to acquire these—good reputation, comforts, material goods, happiness in this life—until the understanding arises that death can happen any moment, any day, and therefore the aims of this life have no meaning and are nonsense and childish, until these understandings arise in your heart spontaneously, until you achieve these realizations, you should meditate on the general lower path of the lamrim, the path of the lower capability being.

When you feel about samsara in the same way that prisoners feel about prison, day and night naturally wanting to be free, with an intense will to get out; when you feel as if your naked body is sitting on a thorn bush; when you feel as if you are in a nest of poisonous snakes; when you feel as if you are on fire; when you feel in these ways that samsara is unbearable and you don’t have the slightest attraction to samsaric pleasures, even in your dreams, but only the wish to be free spontaneously arises in your heart day and night, then you have realized renunciation in your mind.

You should also meditate on the true cause of suffering, the shortcomings of samsara, delusion, and karma. Also, meditate on the three, four, and six types of general sufferings of samsara, the twelve links, and the sufferings of the individual samsaric realms.

One should come to feel toward others as a mother feels toward her beloved child, that child is the most precious one in her heart—whatever problem the child has, even if the child were drowning or in a fire, the mother herself would jump in and rescue the child by herself alone. Meditate until that strong stable feeling arises simultaneously from the bottom of your heart toward all sentient beings without exception, not only wishing sentient beings to be free but wishing by yourself alone to free all sentient beings from suffering and achieve full enlightenment for all sentient beings.

For that purpose, we achieve enlightenment. This thought needs to arise spontaneously and effortlessly day and night, all the time. This is refuge, and you must meditate on bodhicitta until you gain this realization. Finally, the unmistaken realization of emptiness is when you can see subtle dependent arising and emptiness as one object, when you can see that things exist as labels depending on their base and on thought.

When you have the realization that anytime you want to see yourself as the deity in the mandala, it automatically happens that you do so without the slightest effort, this is the generation stage, as explained by Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche. Everything, every detail, is very clear. This also entails being able to concentrate for hours without a single thought entering, such as attachment or scattering thoughts.

This is how to go about meditating on these realizations. Without realizations of renunciation, you cannot attain bodhicitta realizations. Therefore, one needs to work on attaining renunciation, practicing analytical meditations on renunciation, bodhicitta, emptiness, guru devotion, and the generation stage. This is what you can do from now on.

You can do as many of these meditations as you can each day.

My dear Ven. Nuns,
Sorry for the delay. You have asked me about training for nuns. The most important training is the pratimoksa vows, the bodhisattva vows, if one has taken them, and then the tantric vows. The most important training is knowing these well and living according to them. This is the essential training.

Then, there is respecting the elder Sangha members, as well as the teacher.

In the Lam-rim Chen Mo, there is an explanation on how to go to bed in order to have a light sleep so that one can wake up early to practice. If you have a highest yoga initiation, there is a much more profound meditation you can do when you go to bed. It is more profound than the sutra method.

At the end of the Nyung Nye text published by Wisdom, there is a meditation for eating and for preparing for sleep at night.

You have instructions on how to practice each deity, and there are also practices to be done in break times. Then, in the Guru Puja practice, there is the explanation of how everything can become guru yoga practice.

However, the essence is this, from the Bodhicaryavatara:

What is the need for so many activities except that of protecting the mind? If the mind is protected, what is the need for other activities?

and:

If the elephant mind is fastened with the rope of remembrance, all suffering ceases and all virtues come to you.

Our training is watching the mind. Our training is not like being in the army: eating together, walking together, finishing things together, everything happening together, shooting together, and running together.

Of course, I don’t mean that you can be lazy and not follow the program together. That is important.
With much love and prayers always...

My very dear Anila,
Thank you very much for your kind letter.

If you have good experiences with Vajrasattva it means you have karma with Vajrasattva, also that Vajrasattva is blessing you with these experiences.

When you have some bliss then you can make an offering of this to the merit field, the gurus, and the guru puja merit field.

Also, when you experience bliss, think the “I,” action, object, and appearance are empty, merely labeled by the mind, so they are empty. Or, you can make an offering of the bliss, with a mind of bodhicitta, and experience the bliss together with emptiness.

Regarding your question about Manjrushri, it is very good that you have a clear visualization of Manjrushri. It is very good to practice meditation, especially with guru yoga. This will help you to develop all wisdom and realize emptiness. So, make strong prayers to Manjrushri.

It is very important that you continue to do Vajrasattva practice every day.

According to my observations, it would be very good for you to recite 400,000 Vajrasattva mantras. You can do this in three ways: in retreat, strictly; four separate retreats of 100,000 mantras each time; do Vajrasattva practice while you are working, by doing a session in the morning and in the evening, then on weekends doing two days of four sessions; or within the year doing a week retreat now and then (as well as doing morning and evening sessions). If you do it while working, you have to keep the continuity of doing a session every day until you complete the amount of mantras. Or you can do half a day of Vajrasattva practice and half a day of work.

Please enjoy your life with devotion. You are extremely fortunate to have these realizations and experience bliss. It means you can have realizations, so you are very lucky.
With much love and prayers...

My very dear Chokyi,
Thank you very much for your very kind letters and I am sorry it took so long to reply. I read your letters a few times. Thank you also for the thangka that you offered, which is in my house in California.

Regarding ordination, I think you should take ordination as quickly as possible, if not from His Holiness the Dalai Lama then from Denma Locho Rinpoche, Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche, or Jhado Rinpoche, whoever is available, so that you can take ordination as quickly as possible.

It is very good for you to do three-year retreat. Did I suggest Hayagriva before? If so, there is another nun doing this same deity retreat in Solo Khumbu, near Lawudo.

You do need to receive teachings on how to do three-year retreat. Hayagriva is usually done as a one-year retreat, but of course you can do it for three years. The main thing is to do lamrim meditation to achieve renunciation, bodhicitta, and emptiness, all based on guru devotion. Then within that you can do the Hayagriva tantric practice.

According to my observations, the best places for you to do three-year retreat are Mahamudra Center in New Zealand and Kangaroo Island in Australia. There is a retreat center there called Detong Ling—both these places would be very good. It would also be good for you to do retreat in the retreat center in France. Did you have another place in mind?

The main deity for your quickest enlightenment is Gyalwa Gyatso. I may have told you your main deity before. If so, then this means that it is also good for you to practice Gyalwa Gyatso now.

Try your best to study and practice lamrim. Here is some guidance for your practice. Try to study the teachings as much as you can and do lamrim meditations. Any service you can offer is also good. My main advice to you is to do lamrim meditations wherever you are, including if you are studying or offering service. So, this is practice for you for life, for your quickest enlightenment:

100,000 prostrations to the 35 Buddhas
400,000 Dorje Khadro fire practices
10,000 mandala offerings
200,000 tsa tsas—divide them between stupas and the three types of deity: Manjrushri, Chenrezig, and Vajrapani—these are the essence of all Buddha’s compassion, wisdom, and power
20,000 recitations of the Diamond Cutter Sutra
2000 guru yoga practices based on Lama Tsongkhapa guru yoga. You need to do this practice daily, this is a very important practice. Sometimes you can do Lama Chopa (Guru Puja), but daily you do need to do Lama Tsongkhapa guru yoga.

Please study my commentary on Lama Tsongkhapa guru yoga. Also, you need to receive the lung (oral transmission) for Lama Tsongkhapa guru yoga. When I meet you I can give this to you, if you don’t receive it from another lama first. If I am unable to do it, then you can request it from Denma Locho Rinpoche.

Every day you need to meditate on the lamrim. You can do this on the basis of six session guru yoga, Lama Tsongkhapa guru yoga, or Lama Chopa. At the part before the guru enters your heart, you stop and do the lamrim meditations. Because you do six session guru yoga in the morning and evening in this way, you can meditate on the lamrim in the morning and evening.

It is very good if you can get instructions particularly on the teaching of Shine and try to study this. Take the teachings and then later you can do retreat to achieve shine. By having that realization it makes it very easy to achieve all the other realizations of the lamrim and tantric path.

You can plan to do three or four-year retreat. According to my observations the best place for you to do retreat is Mahamudra Center in New Zealand. There is a monk who has been doing retreat there for a long time there. New Zealand would be very good for your Shine retreat. Also, there is some retreat land in France.

Most important is your guru devotion practice. You have to be most careful with this practice. It is the foundation of all the qualities and realizations on the path to enlightenment, so that you are able to benefit all sentient beings, to liberate and enlighten them. All of this depends on correct devotion to the virtuous friend.

This means that anyone that you have taken vows from, including refuge vows, bodhisattva, tantric vows, and ordination vows, also anyone that you took oral transmission from, even a few words, mantras, verses, now you have to regard them as your guru. That means to obtain advice and follow it, seeing the guru as Buddha. This is the greatest commitment in one’s life, the most important one. You can’t just take initiations and teachings here and there and not think that the teacher is your guru. Also, there is not only one guru in your life, you should not think like that. Of course, there is your root guru, who benefits your mind most, who is the most kind to you, who is the kindest among all your gurus.

You cannot think like you are shopping in a market, taking anything from anybody and not regarding them as your guru. All the lamas that you take initiations, transmissions etc. from become your guru; you have to regard them as your guru. This doesn’t mean anyone that you hear Dharma from then becomes your guru. You can study at a university and learn about Buddhism from a professor without regarding him or her as your guru, but you can’t do that with initiations and taking vows.

During the initiation you visualize the guru as the deity and take blessings from that person, who then becomes your guru. If you are asleep during the initiation and you didn’t do the visualization receiving blessings from the lama visualized as the deity, then the lama doesn’t become your guru. If at the beginning you visualize the person as your guru then even if you fall asleep for the rest, still the connection is made, because at the beginning you had the recognition, and made the Dharma connection—the guru-disciple relationship is created. Even if you spaced out for the rest of initiation, only heard a few words at the beginning and then spent the whole initiation thinking of nothing, with no thoughts, like being asleep, and didn’t hear any of the initiation, but at the beginning you had the recognition of a guru-disciple relationship, then the connection is made.

If someone teaches you the mantra TAYATA OM MUNI MUNI MAHA MUNIYE SOHA, or even just one word of the mantra, such as AH, which negates all “I,” action, object, phenomena, samsara, nirvana, happiness, suffering, hell, enlightenment, all that appears to one’s hallucinatory mind as existing from its own side, whereas in reality nothing exists and everything is totally empty of existing from its own side, you have a Dharma connection.

So, if you receive the lung of even one syllable such as AH, one makes a Dharma connection of guru-disciple. This is a huge commitment to have, and means having devotion from your side and that you have to obey that person’s advice, have to put that person above your head or crown as a wish-granting jewel, as the most precious one in your life, more precious than countless buddhas and bodhisattvas. Why? Because without the guru there are no buddhas, Buddha, bodhisattvas, Dharma, Sangha, holy objects, statues, stupas, or scriptures. We don’t see Buddha directly, instead we see holy objects such as statues, stupas, and scriptures. We can collect merit from them by doing prostrations, making offerings, and circumambulating them. Even if one’s mind is not pure, is deluded by ignorance, anger, non-virtuous thoughts, clinging to this life, with holy objects your actions become virtuous by the power of the holy objects. Even if you are having non-virtuous thoughts, still you can collect merit. The guru is the source of all one’s past, present, and future happiness from beginningless rebirths, including enlightenment and enlightening all sentient beings—every single suffering hell being, hungry ghost, animal, human, sura, asura, and intermediate state being—bringing them to enlightenment. Not only achieving all realizations, but also every single pleasure there is in samsara comes from the guru’s kindness. Because of this the guru is more kind than all the buddhas and bodhisattvas, and due to these reasons one must cherish most and obey the gurus.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said that in special guru and disciple relationships, like Marpa, Milarepa, Tilopa, and Naropa, the disciple does everything that the guru says, puts it into action. However, for most people it means to act according to what the scriptures say regarding guru devotion and to obtain advice.

If one is unable to follow the guru’s advice, in order to not create very heavy negative karma, one should humbly, respectfully, without disturbing or upsetting the holy mind, obtain permission, and continue with devotional thoughts, looking at the guru as Buddha.

So, please study the lamrim, especially guru devotion, very well. You must read Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand and the Lam-rim Chen-mo very well and become familiar with the all the subjects. Here is some guidance in regards to lamrim meditations:

Meditate for three months on guru devotion.
Meditate for two months on the graduated path common to the lower capable being.
Meditate for four months on the graduated path common to the middle capable being.
Meditate for three months on the graduated path common to the higher capable being: bodhicitta.
Meditate for three months on emptiness,

Meditate on each subject for the certain amount of time, making it your main focus during that time. Meditating for three months on guru devotion means that is your main meditation during that time. Even when you have finished the whole cycle three times, it is still very good to continue this meditation over and over again, until you have stable realizations.

After completing the cycle three times, if you still do not have guru devotion realizations, then you should take that as your main focus and continue until you have realizations. Then do the same with each subject and continue until you have stable realizations of the whole path. You should also do your preliminary practices. After realizing the lower path then put effort into the middle path, bodhicitta, and then emptiness.
With much love and prayers...

My very dear Jemma,
Thank you very much for your letter. Sorry it took a long time to answer.

According to my observations, it comes out best for you to go to one of the following places to practice:

1) Vajrapani Institute, USA
2) Land Of Medicine Buddha, USA
3) Tse Chen Ling, USA – it has a resident geshe and a strong teaching program
4) France – attending teachings at Nalanda and Institut Vajrayogini – a geshe teaches at both places, so you can study at both.

It comes out best for you to study and meditate and also to help at the center. You can help by offering service and also you can offer reiki. Where you can go depends on your finances. It is best if you contact the directors of the centers and find out from them what is possible.

Regarding financial support, you can apply for the Sangha Fund. I can tell you how to apply for this.

Out of the four places I mentioned, France would be the best place for you to spend some time. After a while, then you can do more retreat, and then after that more study. Each year you can try to do two to three months of retreat.

You always need the lamrim, every day: for meditation, study, and practice; you can combine this with your study and service. Do everything with your mind abiding in the lamrim. When you offer service or study, do it with guru devotion, renunciation, or bodhicitta, and from time to time, remember emptiness. In this way, during the day, when you are cooking, working, etc, see the subject, action, and object as empty, as a dependent arising. According to the Prasangika point of view, they are an extremely subtle dependent arising, that exists in mere name, merely imputed on the mind. Or look at them as a hallucination, existing in mere name, merely imputed by the mind, appearing to one’s hallucinating mind. They do not exist from their own side. Whichever way it is done, it leads to emptiness. The other way is to practice awareness of this hallucination – the meaning of this is that things are empty.

Please make your life most meaningful with the thought of bodhicitta.
With much love and prayers...

My very dear Tenzin,
Thank you very much for your kind letter.

According to my observations, the best place for you to go to live as a monk and study is Drepung monastery. Regarding your question as to what kind of Dharma practice is beneficial, the goal of your life is to actualize bodhicitta in this life (in case you don’t have that realization already). Why bodhicitta? Because the objective of your life is to achieve enlightenment. Not just to achieve liberation for oneself, but to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings. Why? Because the ultimate objective of our life, the real purpose, is to benefit others, to free the countless sentient beings—the hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, suras, asuras, and intermediate state beings—from samsaric suffering and to bring them to full enlightenment. Therefore, one needs to achieve full enlightenment.

To benefit others, to bring them to enlightenment, is the ultimate objective of our life, the purpose of our life, so that is the direction in which we have to go, if possible, 24 hours a day. We should direct our life toward causing happiness for all sentient beings, not just temporary happiness, but the happiness of future lives, liberation from samsara, and enlightenment. So 24 hours a day, whatever we are doing, even sleeping, eating, going to the bathroom, should be directed toward that.

For example, when you go to the bathroom, you can recite Vajrasattva mantra, visualizing Vajrasattva on the top of your crown. Nectar emanates from Vajrasattva and purifies all the sentient beings in your heart, including yourself. Then, all your negative karmas come out in the form of kaka and pee-pee, or you can visualize black liquid coming out, like a waterfall or flood. In this way, we can use our precious human body even when we go to the bathroom. You can do a very valuable meditation like that, benefiting sentient beings. You recite Vajrasattva mantra, purifying all sentient beings, who are in your heart, with nectar, and think that all the negative stuff is coming out. The toilet itself is Yama’s mouth, and all the negative stuff goes inside his mouth. When it goes inside his mouth it becomes nectar. When you are finished, the mouth is closed, sealed with a golden double Vajra. This causes your long life. Think that Yama is completely satisfied and then goes down under the earth.

So, dedicate everything: studying Dharma, taking teachings, making prayers, toward sentient beings receiving ultimate happiness and enlightenment. For sure, you must have read lam-rim, Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, so you have some idea how to generate your motivation as well as doing one’s daily activities with the correct motivation, such as bodhicitta motivation. Then, dedicate the merits to sentient beings achieving enlightenment.

In the Wish-Fulfilling Golden Sun, there is more explanation on how to make all your daily activities beneficial, like opening, going through, and closing a door, when you get dressed, etc. Everything is based on benefiting sentient beings.

It is very important that you practice guru yoga in the morning. Sometimes, if you can, do Guru Puja. If not, then practice Lama Tsong Khapa Guru Yoga every day. That is an essential practice, because without guru yoga, there is no devotion, no seeing the guru as enlightened and as Buddha. All the explanation for this practice is taught in lam-rim. Without that devotion, you can’t receive the blessings of the guru and thus you can’t achieve realizations. That means you can’t achieve the objective of your life, achieving enlightenment for all sentient beings. Without this, you can’t enlighten other sentient beings. So, this is the ultimate practice. It is so important to do guru yoga practice in your daily life.

Every day, on the basis of guru yoga practice, do some guru devotion meditation. You can work through the section on guru devotion in the lam-rim outlines. What you don’t finish one day, continue from there the next day. When you have finished, you can work through it again until you achieve a stable realization of guru devotion, seeing the guru as an enlightened being, from your side.

Then, after guru devotion, meditate on a perfect rebirth up to the section on karma (the lower path) for two months. Train your mind in this. When you finish the section on karma, go back and do guru devotion meditation. Then, spend four months on the middle path—meditate on how samsara is in the nature of suffering, then meditate on the 12 links, and then on the general sufferings of samsara—the six, four, three, and deva/human realms and how they are in the nature of suffering. Meditate on the shortcomings of delusions and all these things. Then, meditate on how delusions come totally from the hallucinated mind and superstition and are completely wrong. That is very important. See how you create a totally wrong, non-existent world, a hallucination. Spend the next five months on bodhicitta and the following three months on emptiness. Then, you work through the subjects again in which you did not have realizations.

The preliminary practices you should do are as follows:

100,000 water bowls—using the extensive offering practice
300,000 tsa-tsas: of 1,000 Armed Chenrezig and Guru Shakyamuni Buddha

It doesn’t matter when you do these, whenever it is suitable for you. Also, it doesn’t matter where you do them, wherever is more suitable. You could go to one of the meditation centers or Nalanda Monastery in France, or the Tsa Tsa Factory in San Francisco where lots of tsa-tsas are produced and all the tools you need are available. You could either make the tsa-tsas there or you can get molds and make them at home. You can give people the tsa-tsas for their altar, to put around the house to purify the mind and to collect merit, to plant the seed of enlightenment and to liberate others. The tsa-tsas can be put outside or inside the house, even in the shrine room, but respectfully and very nicely. Or, if someone is building a large stupa, the tsa-tsas can go inside the stupa. There are many ways you can use tsa-tsas.

A stupa has different levels, made of wood or with stone or cement. First, you lift it high up from the ground. Then you have different layers—five, six, or seven layers. You can put all the tsa-tsas around inside it. You can fill up the whole stupa with tsa-tsas inside. Also, on the edge of the first, second, or third level, in this inner space, you can also put water-bowl offerings to Buddha. Otherwise, you can just fill up the stupa with the tsa-tsas. That is such an easy way to build a stupa, and then people can circumambulate it to purify negative karma and achieve enlightenment quickly. Since the world and individuals have so many problems, it’s a way to quickly get out of samsara.

Please also recite 60,000 Vajrasattva mantras.

Recite the Diamond Cutter Sutra every day. That would be great. That is one of the best preliminary practices, the most powerful, quick way to realize emptiness, get out of samsara, and be able to liberate others from the samsaric prison which has no beginning.

You asked, “Shall I engage in highest yoga tantra?” Yes, when you have the opportunity, take it. Chenrezig Gyalwa Gyatso (Secret Chenrezig) came out as your special deity to practice in everyday life to achieve enlightenment quickly so you can enlighten sentient beings.

If you meditate on lam-rim every day, that can be like a retreat, then you use the other time to study Dharma. In this way, you keep your mind in the Dharma, especially bodhicitta. Everything you do, do it with bodhicitta.

Each year, try to do something more intensive, alone, like a fifteen-day or month-long retreat. This could be a deity retreat, after you have received the initiation. Or you could do the lam-rim and preliminary practices. You can do a little bit each day of the preliminaries while you are learning and studying Dharma. Meditate on lam-rim, do some preliminaries, and study Dharma. Sometimes you can do more preliminaries, sometimes more lam-rim, a deity retreat, recitations, meditation, but it should always be done with some lam-rim. Lam-rim is always there, whichever practice you do, whether you are doing deity retreat or preliminaries. Even if you are just relaxing on the beach, the lam-rim should be there. Without lam-rim your life is empty, like an empty container.

Regarding your lung (wind imbalance), according to my observations, it looks like you need a vacation. Walking on the beach, looking at the water or mountains, something to distract the mind would be most beneficial for your lung. Staying in your room alone and intensively practicing and studying may increase the lung. So, you need to be skillful with your mind. From time to time you need to go out just to refresh yourself.

You need to look after your mind. You become the doctor—your mind is the patient, you are the psychologist. You are the parents and your mind is the child. You are the guru and your mind is the disciple. So, you have a child to take care of: your mind. That’s your biggest responsibility. If you are able to take care of that, you can take care of sentient beings, others’, minds.

This is how to prevent yourself from getting lung, Also, some exercise may be good. Try the Six Yogas of Naropa Exercise, the four main exercises. Also the Five Tibetans can be helpful for lung.

You asked how strictly to take the vows of not eating after lunch. I eat many snacks because I have diabetes. It’s best to observe the vows as much as you can, including fasting. It’s the best. Of course, when you are sick or have no energy, then there’s permission not to fast. Then, the food becomes medicine. But generally you should attempt as much as possible to fast after lunch—that’s the best. Try to keep all the vows well.

In short, the more purely you can live in the pratimoksha vows, then the more purely you will be able to live in the bodhisattva vows and tantric vows. That helps you to achieve enlightenment. If these different levels of vows are kept purely, then that means you are able to quickly achieve realizations of the path to enlightenment. Also, your prayers have a lot of power. If your vows are pure, your prayers to the protectors and the triple gem will be powerful, and they will protect you. Even the worldly protectors, nagas, and landlords will protect you. Then, because you are sincere, you are truly living according to the vows, your words have power and they will quickly achieve success for you, to actualize what you need. Your wishes are fulfilled easily, such as for things that you need or to benefit other sentient beings. When you are praying for others’ healing, long life, and freedom from problems, your prayers have much more power. If there is some danger in the world, then the more purely you are living according to the vows, the more power your prayers have to attract even the elements and avert “natural disasters”, so that many people don’t have to suffer. Many people think natural disasters don’t depend on karma, but this is a wrong view. There is no experience which does not depend on karma.
With much love and prayers...