Member of the FPMT

My very dear Noah,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I am very happy to know of your interesting practice, especially your practice of bodhicitta and dedicating your merits to all sentient beings, so that their sicknesses are healed. I saw you are reciting mantras but I didn’t see that you are practicing guru yoga—Lama Tsong Khapa guru yoga or Shakyamuni Buddha guru yoga, or the most extensive one, which is Lama Chopa. Lama Chopa might be difficult for you to do at the moment, as to be qualified you need a highest yoga tantra initiation. Until then, you can practice Lama Tsong Khapa guru yoga, meditating on the oneness of the guru-deity, looking at Buddha from your side and seeing oneness. That causes realizations on the path to enlightenment.

Also, reciting a prayer of the stages of the path to enlightenment (lamrim prayer) every day plants the seeds of the realizations of the whole path to enlightenment every day, and that means you become closer to realizing the path to enlightenment every day, which means you become closer to enlightening all sentient beings every day. This is by doing direct meditation on the stages of the path to enlightenment (any lamrim prayer*). This is a fundamental practice in one’s daily life. On the basis of this, then one can do elaborate meditations on the stages of the path to enlightenment, step by step, until one achieves stable realizations. If you don’t have much time, then at least do meditation on the lamrim, which means reading a lamrim prayer mindfully.

Also, it is very good if every year you can do some retreat, it can be a week, a month, or many months long, it doesn’t matter how long it is. It can be a deity retreat or a retreat on the lamrim, combined with preliminary practices, or a preliminary practice retreat combined with lamrim.
With much love and prayers...

*Note: See, for example, the lamrim prayers composed by Lama Je Tsongkhapa.

My very dear Nina,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. It is great that you wish to practice these two – Medicine Buddha and Chenrezig. This is my general advice to everyone. It is very important in everyday life to do these two practices. Since you want to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings, liberate sentient beings from suffering and the causes of suffering, bring sentient beings to enlightenment, and at least liberate yourself from the oceans of sufferings, it is very important to do these two practices.

Also, it is very important to recite one lamrim prayer every day. This includes all the stages of the path to enlightenment within it and it is very important to recite it without your mind being distracted. Then, this becomes a direct meditation on the lamrim and that plants the seed of enlightenment. Also, in some lamrim prayers there are a few lines of the tantric path. Then, when you have taken a highest tantric initiation you can recite your personal deity’s tantric stages of the path. It is very important to recite that every day. This prepares your mind for the tantric path to enlightenment and helps you achieve enlightenment quickly.

All of these practices I am giving you (in enclosed sheets) should all be performed on the basis of guru devotion. If you haven’t taken a highest tantric initiation then you should practice daily Guru Shakyamuni meditation or Lama Tsong Khapa guru yoga, which ever you feel closer to, then you will receive more blessings.

As you have already received the Chenrezig great initiation, you are qualified to practice the sadhana and recite the mantra. So, even while you are doing your job in the daytime, your mind should focus on Chenrezig with devotion while reciting the mantra as much as possible. Then, you can visualize nectar flowing out from Chenrezig and entering your body, speech, and mind. You are completely purified and the four things are completely purified (disease, spirit harm, negative karma, and defilements). So, sometimes focus on purifying, and sometimes meditate on the two types of bodhicitta: exchanging yourself and others and the seven point mind training: six causes and one effect. While meditating on these two, recite the Chenrezig mantra. You can also meditate and recite at the same time while meditating on tonglen– taking on suffering and the all the undesirable things and then giving loving kindness, compassion, and all your merit of the three times and the resulting happiness up to enlightenment. Your body becomes a wish-granting jewel for all sentient beings. You can also mentally offer all your belongings.

You can get the longest Chenrezig mantra from the FPMT Education Department in the US*.

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

*Note: Or, refer to Lama Zopa Rinpoche's advice on the Chenrezig practice here.

Dear Nicola,
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 tonglen. You can read about this practice in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. After doing tonglen, 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 10 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 35 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 Ne 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 lamrim 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 Chopa combined with Jor Cho. When you do the lamrim prayer which is in Lama Chopa, 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 lamrim meditation, such as the perfect human rebirth.

Every day before you go to bed, you should again recite the names of the 35 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 Tsong Khapa’s “taking the essence day and night,” that is, whatever section of the lamrim one is 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 lamrim 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 24 hours a day. That involves watching and checking one’s mind 24 hour a day, each day of one’s 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.

My Very Dear Keith,

Thank you very much for your kind letter. I am very happy to hear that you want to dedicate your life to daily practice, and also the preliminaries. Here are the answers from my Mickey Mouse observations for your daily practice.

For guru yoga, it would be best to do Chenrezig. In the meantime, you can do the Eight Verses practice, the Everflowing Nectar of Bodhicitta practice. The Chenrezig practice of reciting OM MANI PADME HUM is the most important practice in daily life. The very heart of the purpose of life is to develop compassion for every single hell being, animal being, hungry ghost, human being, sura, and asura being, because the purpose of life is to benefit others. To benefit others, what drives this? The Buddha of Compassion. Without the Buddha of Compassion, it’s like not having fuel in a car or an airplane, you cannot use the vehicle to bring the people to the place where they wish to be for their happiness. Without compassion, you don’t care about others’ happiness, so you don’t help others. If there is compassion, you bring peace and happiness to your family, society, neighbors, area, country, the whole world – to all sentient beings – those who are in different universes and realms, to everyone, without leaving out even one being; you help to benefit everyone.

Compassion helps you develop the wish to be able to help others. Then you see you need general wisdom, Dharma wisdom, and in particular, the wisdom to realize emptiness. What causes the need to achieve enlightenment is compassion generated toward every living being. What causes us to achieve enlightenment is compassion. Because of compassion, you collect extensive merit. That helps you to realize emptiness, and that wisdom causes you to eliminate all the defilements, both gross and subtle. Because of the vast amounts of merit that you collect all the time, with the root of compassion for countless beings, you are able to complete the path. Therefore, you are able to remove the gross and subtle defilements and achieve full enlightenment.

After you achieve enlightenment, you are able to perform perfect works without any effort. You simultaneously work for sentient beings, until everyone becomes enlightened. It is like one sun rising, but it reflects simultaneously in every body of water in the world in the ocean and even in one dew drop. So, working for sentient beings becomes like that. You benefit them without the slightest mistake and bring everyone from happiness to happiness to enlightenment, including yourself.

So, you see now how compassion is the most important thing, the most important realization. It makes life most meaningful and every single action of yours most beneficial for all sentient beings. Therefore, you need to receive the blessings of the special deity of compassion, and that is the Compassion Buddha, Avalokiteshvara.

Please get the book on the Teachings from the Mani Retreat. It explains the benefit of the mantra and the Chenrezig (Avalokiteshvara) practice. If you get that, I don’t have to explain too much here.

As for preliminary practices, probably you have some understanding why to do these. Lama Tsongkhapa asked Manjushri, “What is the quickest way to achieve enlightenment?” Manjushri replied, “Practice purifying the obstacles to realizations, collect the necessary conditions due to merits, and one pointedly request to the guru.” This means, with the mind of guru yoga – the pure mind seeing the guru as Buddha – with that devotion, making one pointed requests to grant blessings, just like all the lineage lamas who actualized the path and achieved enlightenment. This is what they did. All the realizations and enlightenment that they achieved, enabling them to enlighten all other sentient beings, this is the profit, the advantage, that comes from these practices, including one pointedly requesting the guru with that pure mind of devotion.

For the actual body and mind training of the path, the root of the path is guru devotion, in order to have stable realizations. Then, there are three principle paths to enlightenment: renunciation, bodhicitta, and right view. Then, there is the uncommon path: highest tantra and the two stages.

Your preliminary practices are as follows:

Water bowls: 90,000
Tsatsas: 70,000
Mandala offerings: 300,000
Guru yoga: 80,000
Dorje Khadro: 90,000
Tonglen – the bodhicitta practice: 100,000

Tonglen is making the requesting prayer together with the meditation of giving and taking. Here, each time when you take on sufferings and the causes of sufferings, including the negative imprints, take all sentient beings’ sufferings, including the delusions and karma, negative imprints, and also the undesirable environment. For example, in hell, there is the ice fire, the ice mountain, the burning ground, and the iron house; then the pretas’ environment is a very depressing place with no water, and so hot and cold; the humans’ environment, it is a very dirty place full of thorn bushes. You take the environmental sufferings as well, in the form of black pollution, and you give them to the ego and destroy the ego – one’s own worst enemy. This is the greatest demon that has interfered so far with your being able to achieve enlightenment. It hasn’t allowed you to achieve enlightenment, liberation from samsara, or to enlighten all sentient beings, not even one. In these ways, you can see that one’s own ego is the enemy of all sentient beings, not only an enemy to you.

Also, you collect so many merits by taking on all the sufferings, the causes of suffering, and the undesirable environments. Then, when you practice giving, you collect vast amounts of merits by offering your body as a wish-fulfilling jewel and offering your possessions to all sentient beings. However many possessions you have, you collect that much merit by offering them to sentient beings. Because sentient beings are countless, you collect countless merits with each possession you offer.

Then, by offering all the past, present, and future merits, the three times’ merits, again, you collect so much merit. You offer all your future happiness, present happiness, from the next minute’s happiness up until enlightenment, including liberation and the realizations to each and every single hell being, hungry ghost, animal, human, sura, and asura being. You can see that sentient beings are countless. By giving to each of them, you collect so many merits. You can’t imagine. I think if you really knew how much merit you collect, you would faint, fall down – it might be difficult to get up! I hope it’s not for a long time! I hope people won’t take you to a hospital or a psychologist. I hope your family or friends don’t take you to the hospital because of it!

There is a prayer from Nagarjuna’s teachings:

Whatever sufferings there are, may they ripen on me; whatever happiness I have, may it ripen on sentient beings.

With the first part, you do the practice of taking. With the second, you do the practice of giving. Then you count on the mala (each time you recite the verse). I think you will be blissed out from this practice and the sentient beings will be blissed out!

As for meditations on the lamrim, please do the following:

Five months – lower scope
Three months – middle scope
Two months – bodhicitta
Four months – right view

With much love and prayer...

Dear Jeanette,
Vajrayogini is your main deity to achieve enlightenment quickly for sentient beings. In order to receive this initiation you need to receive another highest tantra initiation. So, in the future, take an initiation that is good for you from a lama. Most importantly, you must develop the mind of lamrim and the three principal aspects of the path. To achieve realizations based on guru devotion, first you should study and read the whole lamrim, it doesn’t matter how long it takes. You can read the lamrim of Pabongka Rinpoche, the “Refined Gold” by the Seventh Dalai Lama, and also teachings from geshes in your country who have taught lamrim from a long time. Those teachings could be helpful for you to get a clear understanding. It is not just only reading a lamrim book and meditating on the path, sometimes also you need to do practices of strong purification, accumulation of merits, and guru devotion.

If you can, do purification practices such as prostrations reciting the 35 Buddhas' names, repeating Vajrasattva mantra before going to bed, and making extensive dedication such as the King of Prayers. If you can do this, it could benefit sentient beings, in the same way as the bodhisattvas and Buddha. Collect the merits of mandala offerings and making offerings to the great Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha every day. You can offer food, water, flowers, and lights in front of the altar, holy objects, Guru Puja merit field in the ten directions of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, or statues, scriptures and buddhas in the ten directions. So, every day, please do this as much as possible, you will create many merits. By generating bodhicitta you collect vast amounts of merit. Practice bodhicitta meditation: taking other sentient beings’ sufferings and giving them all your merits and possessions; giving to others and guiding them to enlightenment; generating loving kindness for all sentient beings; and offering service to all sentient beings with a sincere heart, knowing that sentient beings are the most kind beings in your life.

Be kind to others every day of your life, inside and outside your house, also to other beings such as animals, and you will collect merits. The other method to collect vast amounts of merit is to practice every day rejoicing in your own past, present, and future merits; the merits of sentient beings of the three times; and the merits of buddhas and bodhisattvas of the three times. This practice of rejoicing collects so much merit in a minute, in an hour, at any time. The highest merit is from practice with the guru: giving service; obeying advice; and doing things that please the guru, other people’s guru, and your own guru with whom you have made a Dharma connection.

Practicing like this is the best way to take care of yourself and others. When you practice like this with guru devotion, you purify negative karma, collect merits, and take care of countless sentient beings.

With much long prayer...

My very dear Irma,
Regarding your question about practices, as a daily practice you can do Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga and within that do your lamrim meditations, receiving blessings from the guru.

In the morning, perform prostrations to the 35 Buddhas by reciting the 35 Buddhas’ names, prostrating toward your altar, statues, stupas, and scriptures of the Buddha.

Before going to bed, recite 28 short Vajrasattva mantras or 21 long Vajrasattva mantras. Vajrasattva practice is very important to stop the day’s negative karma from doubling, and tripling the day after. After three days the negative karma is multiplied by eight, the fourth day by 16, and so on, getting heavier and heavier. Doing Vajrasattva practice purifies the day’s negative karma, as well as past lives’ negative karma. So, you can see how important this practice is, how urgent it is to purify negative karma—it should feel so urgent that you can’t wait even one second before purifying it.

We need to purify obstacles and delusions so as to achieve realizations on the path to enlightenment, and so that we can do perfect work for sentient beings, not just for their temporary happiness but for the ultimate happiness of liberation from samsara, so they never experience the sufferings of samsara again. Ultimately, we need to bring them to full enlightenment. This means eliminating even the subtle mistakes of the mind and achieving all the realizations completely. In this way, we also purify all of the problems in this life, such as relationship and health problems, which all come from negative karma. Also, disasters of the elements (from fire, wind, earth, and water) come from negative karma. All this negative karma is purified so that you don’t have to experience catastrophes or health problems, such as cancer. If you do experience them you only suffer a fraction of what you would have experienced otherwise.

The answer to being free from all these sufferings lies in how one does purification practice. It all depends on how strongly, continuously, and perfectly one does purification practice.

The other important issue in becoming free from these sufferings is to not commit the same negative karmas again that cause obstacles to realizations, suffering in future lives, and rebirth in the lower realms, as well as problems and obstacles in this life. By not committing the same negative karma, one receives temporary happiness in this life as well as in future lives. Therefore, we need to abstain from committing negative actions as much as possible; one easy way to do this is to abstain from the ten non-virtuous actions.

An easy way to abstain from the ten non-virtuous actions is to take the five lay vows, or whatever number one can, from a qualified lama. When you take the vows you enter a guru-disciple relationship, so that means you then need to regard the person giving the vows as one of your gurus. So, it is very important from whom you take the vows because that person becomes your guru, to whom you should have devotion and from whom you obtain advice. If there is no opportunity to take the vows from sangha, then you can also take the vows from an elder lay student, a good practitioner who preserves and lives their life in the vows.

Keeping the vows and abstaining from the ten non-virtuous actions is a fundamental practice that is important to emphasize if one wants realizations on the path to enlightenment, to have happiness in this and future lives, liberation from samsara, and to achieve full enlightenment and be able to enlighten all sentient beings.

The person from whom you take the vows for the first time should hold the lineage but, if this is not possible, then you can take the vows from a holy object such as a picture or statue of Buddha, or, if you have no altar, you can visualize Buddha. Think that all the buddhas of the ten directions are in front of you and then you take the vows from them.

Generally, you need the lineage, so that means receiving the vows from someone who is holding the lineage. However, because death can happen at any time and living in the vows is an easy way to make your life most productive, you can take the vows from the visualized Buddha, taking whatever number of lay vows you are able to keep. In this way, by keeping the vows, you create merit so that you can have a good rebirth in your next life. Taking the vows from a visualized Buddha is only necessary if you live in a very remote place, like a desert, where there are no people holding the lineage or good practitioners. This is only applicable for lay vows; it does not work for higher ordination, for that you must have the lineage. For the five lay vows and eight Mahayana precepts, it is best if you receive the lineage, but if that is not possible then you can take them as I have explained.

Another very important thing is what to do when you are in a break from your sitting meditation. Whatever actions you do when you are not sitting in meditation should all be performed according to the lamrim, with your mind in the lamrim. You can connect your actions with whatever lamrim meditation you have practiced in the morning. Perform all your actions out of that positive thought, such as impermanence, compassion, bodhicitta, guru devotion, renunciation, right view, etc.

Whatever meditation you did in the morning or during that month, perform all the activities in your break out of that meditation, or according to that way of thinking. The bottom line is to perform all one’s actions with bodhicitta. That is the best, most meaningful way to think during your break-time. This makes your life most beneficial. As much as possible, with awareness, keep your attitude and thoughts in bodhicitta, the thought of benefiting others, trying to perform all activities with that mind, including doing your job, throughout the day.

This way, even in your break-time, whatever you do becomes the cause of happiness. Otherwise, your most precious life is used to create the cause of suffering. One’s whole life becomes like that, which is so sad, the saddest thing. You have all the opportunities to achieve enlightenment, the highest success, the most beneficial thing for all sentient beings, and instead it is just wasted.

If you are not born as a human being but as a spider, mosquito, fish in the ocean, gopher, snake, etc., you have buddha nature, but because you don’t have a human body, you can’t do anything. Even if you live for billions of years, you only create the cause of suffering, with non-virtuous thoughts such as ignorance, attachment, and anger. The only motivation you have is to kill and chase other animals.

For instance, you might be born as a shark and eat so many other sentient beings every day. Or if you are born as a tiger or leopard, you will chase, frighten, and kill so many other animals. Then, your whole family of tigers will come and eat the animal. Every day, tigers cause so much fear to others. Their whole life is like this. They do not create any good karma and only create negative karma. We have been born as tigers so many times, from beginningless rebirths, it is unimaginable! We have collected so many negative karmas because we have frightened and killed so many others so many times.

So, you can see how important it is that you have received this perfect, rare, precious human rebirth. Every day, every hour, every minute, it is most critical to use this precious opportunity to practice Dharma, to actualize the path with your mind living in the lamrim, with guru devotion, renunciation, bodhicitta, and right view. Try to live your life on the basis of the three principles of the path.

If you are not familiar with the lamrim, then first read through the entire lamrim, maybe read a lamrim text like Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand two or three times from beginning to end, to become familiar with it and to understand how to do the meditations. You can read different lamrim texts and do different meditations at different times.

Of all the practices, the main thing is meditation on the lamrim, to have the lamrim realizations; tantric practice is secondary.
With much love and prayers...

For daily practice, you can use the version I have prepared of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha yoga daily meditation practice. You can also meditate on the lamrim. Please also make your break-times, between sitting meditations, a Dharma practice. This is how you integrate your break-times and daily life with the lamrim, so that your life is always in accord with the Dharma, always collecting merit and purifying. Your life is always directed toward liberation from samsara. In other words, whatever you are doing, during break-times or in sitting sessions, it is always something enlightening, not causing you to circle in samsara, but liberating you from samsara and bringing you to full enlightenment.

It is OK to practice Chenrezig guru yoga practice or of another deity, but otherwise you can practice Guru Shakyamuni Buddha yoga, then meditate on the lamrim. This way you have an actual practice. It is important how you apply the lamrim in your life.

You can also use other texts, such as Advice From a Spiritual Friend, Geshe Rabten's commentary, or other texts.

My very dear Neus,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. Regarding your mother, I checked regarding her practice. Please pass this on to her.

Every day, she can practice Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga or Guru Shakyamuni Buddha daily meditation practice, before absorbing the merit field into her (of Lama Tsongkhapa or Shakyamuni Buddha). She should do one lamrim prayer and meditate on each section of the lamrim for two weeks, so, for instance, spend two weeks on Guru Devotion, then two weeks on death and impermanence, then two weeks on karma, etc. In this way, she can work through the lamrim, and then go through it again, starting from the beginning, until she has stable realizations. She can follow the outline in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand or Essential Nectar. Read slowly through these books. At least read Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand completely twice.

In the morning, she should generate a bodhicitta motivation. She can do this while reciting OM MANI PADME HUNG. She can find a good bodhicitta motivation from one of my talks or from the Wish-fulfilling Golden Sun.

Then, if possible, if she can do prostrations to the 35 Buddhas by reciting the names of the 35 Buddhas. She should prostrate to her altar, to many pictures of the merit field, and holy objects. If she can do 35 prostrations once, twice, or three times a day, that would be best.

Before going to bed she should recite one mala or half a mala of Vajrasattva and remember the four opponent powers. It would be great if she can do this.

With much love and prayers to you and the whole family, and I hope to see the whole family soon.

White Tara Initiation and Daily Practice
Rinpoche gave the following introduction to a White Tara initiation at Osel Shen Phen Ling center, in Missoula, in August 1997.

Reasons for Taking a White Tara Initiation
You might have obstacles in your life that could cause your untimely death. There are many solutions for this. If the obstacles are due to your good karma and merit being exhausted, then in order to prolong your life now and to have longevity in future lives, you need to practice very powerful ways to collect a lot of merit, such as taking long life initiations, reciting the mantras of long life deities, saving the lives of animals and people, offering medicine to people and taking care of sick people, offering food, clothing, and shelter to living beings, and freeing people from prison. If the obstacles in your life and untimely death are due to negative karma, the solution is to purify it. You can also make light offerings to the Triple Gem. Light offerings help you develop Dharma wisdom and clairvoyance, due to their dispelling the darkness around holy objects.

White Tara is extremely powerful. Tara is very close to sentient beings, like a mother is close to her children. She is very quick to fulfil our wishes and to grant us happiness and a long life, as well as to help us develop wisdom. By taking refuge in Tara and practicing meditation, visualizations, and having faith, you have the power to remove obstacles to your life and to prolong your life.

Universal Responsibility
The reason for having a long life is not just for the sake of your own happiness. The actual purpose and meaning of living every day, every hour, every minute, every second is to be useful, beneficial, and to bring happiness to other beings. There are so many beings who are suffering and need your help. They need your compassion, they need your loving kindness, and they need your help and support. Whether you are helping one sentient being or many, making your everyday life beneficial and useful for them is the meaning and purpose of your life.

To achieve full enlightenment for all sentient beings is of the greatest benefit. To be able to perform perfect work for all living beings, you need to actualize the steps of the path to enlightenment. For that reason, you need to have a long life. This is the reason for taking the White Tara initiation and performing the practice.

The happiness of this life is one benefit you can offer to living beings. But more important is bringing them the everlasting happiness of all their future lives. Even more important than everlasting happiness is to liberate them from samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth, and from all their sufferings and causes—their delusions and karma. Even more important than that is to guide them to the complete, perfect peace and bliss of full enlightenment.

To be able to do all this perfectly, without any mistakes, you need to achieve full enlightenment, the cessation of all mistakes in the mind and the completion of all realizations. How can we accomplish this? The beginning of spiritual practice is abandoning negative karmic actions that harm yourself others and practicing virtue. You need to understand this and make a strong effort to do this in your daily life. Otherwise, you won’t even complete the path to liberation from samsara for yourself, and all your energy and effort in practicing meditation and other spiritual practices will be wasted. There is the danger of completely wasting your precious human life.

The beginning of the path is the meditation on our perfect human rebirth, realizing that your human life is qualified with the eight freedoms and ten richnesses. For this, and all the realizations up to enlightenment, to be successful depends on how much you are able to practice guru devotion correctly. This depends on looking for a qualified guru. After you have found a perfect Mahayana guru, analyzed his or her qualities, and have made a connection with him or her, you can practice correct guru devotion.

When Waking Up
After waking up in the morning, the first thing to do is to feel happy that you haven’t died yet. Think, “Even last night, many people in this world died. This morning, they are no longer human beings with the opportunity to practice Dharma. So far, I haven’t died. I didn’t die last night. This is a miracle! Life is full of so many obstacles—the inner obstacles of afflictive thoughts—the 84,000 delusions that shorten our lifespan and cause death—and the external obstacles of many sicknesses and dangers. I’m so fortunate to still have this opportunity to practice Dharma.”

The meaning and purpose of your life is to be useful and bring happiness to other beings. We have this responsibility. Why do we have this universal responsibility for the happiness of all living beings? Because if we have compassion, then we won’t harm sentient beings and they will only feel peace and happiness in our presence. It all depends on what we do with our mind. If we don’t have compassion then we are only concerned about ourselves and our own happiness, due to thoughts of self-cherishing, anger, and other negative emotions that cause us to harm other living beings, directly or indirectly, from life to life. Therefore, we have full responsibility for the happiness of all beings. (Include people in your family, people who you work with, friends, enemies, and then all sentient beings. Feel this purpose of your life and your universal responsibility first thing in the morning before doing anything else. This is very important.)

Think to yourself, “I have a perfect human body; I’ve met my guru who guides me on the path to enlightenment; and I’ve met the Buddhadharma, which explains the path and methods, the causes of happiness and of suffering, what is liberation and what is samsara, what is real happiness and peace and what is illusory happiness. I’m extremely fortunate!” Rejoice—feel very happy and appreciative. Then think, “Therefore, I’m going to practice sutra and tantra as much as possible on the basis of correct guru devotion.”

When getting dressed think, “Since I have this universal responsibility, to protect my life and health I need to wear clothes.” This way, getting dressed is not done just for your own sake, but so you can continue to serve others.

When washing your face or taking a shower, think, “Since I have this universal responsibility, I need to wash to stay healthy so I can continue serving and benefiting others.”

When eating, having breakfast, lunch, or dinner, remember the meaning of your life and feel your responsibility for everyone’s happiness: “In order to serve others, to practice Dharma, and to meditate on the path so I can benefit others, I need to be healthy and have a long life.” Then, eating meals brings happiness to others.

Before going to bed think about the same things, about the meaning of your life and your responsibility for all sentient beings’ happiness, and that to be able continue to serve them you need to be healthy: “For this purpose I am going to sleep.” In this way, however many hours you sleep you are still serving and benefiting others.

Going to work: One very important thing is how to think before going to work, because you spend so much of your life working at your job. A lot of your time is spent sleeping and working. Even if you live for a hundred years, half your life is spent sleeping and half is spent working. Therefore, it is very important before going to work to make sure that you generate a virtuous motivation, the thought to benefit others. This is extremely important. Think, “This job I’m doing isn’t just for me and my needs but for the happiness of others.” You can also think of all the people who enjoy and benefit from the service or products your job is providing. When your life is so busy, with many things to do, the only refuge you have—even if you can’t do much practice, prayers, sitting meditation, and so forth—is your own mind, the good heart. This is your most important refuge.

While working, check your motivation from time to time to see if it has become selfish or if you are still thinking of how to benefit others. If your mind has become self-centered, then transform it into thoughts of benefiting others, and remember the purpose of your life and your responsibility for the happiness of all living beings. Remember that your that selfish mind is the demon, your enemy, who causes all your problems and obstacles. Then, transform your mind into a bodhicitta motivation—the thought of benefiting others.

If you make a strong effort to practice compassion and bodhicitta, then even if you don’t have time to perform other practices, but you do everything with the thought of benefiting others, then all your actions—working, taking care of your friends, eating, walking, sleeping—are not only virtuous and causes of happiness, but are causes of enlightenment, the highest happiness.

Taking refuge in bodhicitta, your good heart, is so crucial. It is like a priceless jewel that is much more precious than if the whole of space were filled with wish-granting jewels. There is nothing compared to the value of your good heart. Just one minute feeling compassion for one sentient being, whether for an insect or a person, is unbelievably precious, as it brings you closer to bodhicitta, and closer to enlightenment.

Even if you can’t perform many practices, but you hold the thought of benefiting others in your mind, then your whole life—every day, month, and year is transformed and is like gold, like a diamond, and becomes extremely meaningful and beneficial for all living beings. Your life isn’t spent just providing for your own happiness. If you don’t take refuge in bodhicitta, your good heart, then even if you stay many years in retreat, even if you recite billions of mantras, it all has little meaning or no meaning and the benefit for yourself and others is very small.

Before going to bed dedicate all the merits you have accumulated, especially during that day, to your enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. In this way, the many hours you have worked at your job become virtuous and a cause of enlightenment.

This is the best way to enjoy your life. Living with this attitude is the most fulfilling way to live. In the west there is so much talk about loving yourself and being kind to yourself. Actually, having the attitude of benefiting others is the best way of loving and taking care of yourself. Having renunciation and making an effort to become liberated from samsara is the best way of loving yourself because you are trying to protect yourself from the lower realms and all the sufferings of cyclic existence and its causes. Meditating on emptiness is extremely important, as it cuts the root of all your sufferings, so it is a very good way to love yourself. But practicing bodhicitta, cherishing others, is the best way to love yourself, because all happiness comes from bodhicitta. Most people think that in order to be happy you need to take care of yourself first, not knowing that self-cherishing opens the door to every problem. For example, if a person never gets along with other people and sees everyone as his enemy wherever he goes, it is because he has a self-centered attitude and gets angry and upset easily. His life is filled with many problems, and he causes problems to everyone else.

You can look at your own life and notice that when your mind is compassionate and loving, you feel more peaceful and you are more able to offer happiness and peace to others. When your mind is more selfish and impatient, then you cause more problems and harm to everyone around you.

To achieve full enlightenment for the sake of all living beings and to be able to perform perfect work for all living beings, you need to actualize the stages of the path to enlightenment. For that reason, you need to have a long life. This is the reason for taking the White Tara initiation and performing the practice.

More talks by Lama Zopa on this topic:
Refer to Lama Zopa's Advice for Daily Practice.