Broken Vows and Commitments

Broken Vows and Commitments

Broken Tantric Commitments
Date of Advice:
October 2017
Date Posted:
January 2019

Rinpoche wrote this letter to a student who was struggling to maintain tantric commitments in a busy Western lifestyle. The student had received Highest Yoga Tantra initiations from Rinpoche and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, but had broken the commitments. After returning to the West, the student often tried to do the practices by waking up during the night but felt the need for more sleep and basic meditation.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche on the day of his arrival at Cham Tse Ling gompa, Hong Kong, April 2016. Photo: Roger Kunsang.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter informing me of everything that you have gone through. I am sorry it took many eons for me to reply.

Of course, I understand, but I just want to clarify this to you. After taking initiation from His Holiness the Dalai Lama or me, these commitments are not something that has no meaning or not much purpose in the life. It is not like that at all.

Generally these tantric practices are done with a lamrim foundation, correctly following the virtuous friend by looking at the guru as a buddha. The result is that you are able to see the guru as a buddha and from that realization you are able to generate all the realizations of the path to enlightenment. Correctly following the virtuous friend is the root of the path to enlightenment. This is such an important subject, the most important one in your life.

Also, without renunciation—renouncing this life and future lives’ samsara—the practice of tantra doesn’t become the cause to achieve liberation. Not only that, without renunciation of this life, even if you practice tantra it becomes the cause of the lower realms. Therefore, tantra has to be practiced on the basis of renunciation, renouncing samara.

And it should be done with bodhicitta, after having generated great compassion for all sentient beings. By knowing all the sufferings of each realm—the hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, suras and asuras—and by [reflecting on] the general suffering in samsara,  you can see how all beings are circling in samsara, through the twelve links. From this you generate great compassion for sentient beings and then you generate bodhicitta.

If you practice tantra with bodhicitta, then that tantra practice becomes the cause of  enlightenment. But without bodhicitta, tantra practice doesn’t become the cause of enlightenment. Even if you practice kundalini or chakras, winds, drops, dzog chen or dzog rim, or anything, the graduated completion state and so forth, it doesn’t become the cause of enlightenment.

Without bodhicitta and without right view—the ultimate wisdom understanding emptiness—tantra practice doesn’t even become the remedy to samsara; it doesn’t eliminate ignorance. There is danger that it will become the cause of samsara.

You can achieve enlightenment by practicing Mahayana Sutra, which is practiced on the lesser vehicle path. The subject is the four noble truths, which is the very basis of Buddhism. By practicing Sutra you can achieve enlightenment, but you need to create the cause—the merit of virtue and the merit of wisdom. The merit of wisdom is the cause of rupakaya and dharmakaya. It normally takes three countless great eons to achieve rupakaya and dharmakaya—the Buddha’s holy body and holy mind. Normally that takes so much time and because it takes a long time then sentient beings have to suffer for so long.

Therefore, there is the need to practice tantra, the quick path to enlightenment. There are four levels of tantra: 1) Kriya Tantra; 2) Charya Tantra; 3) Anuttara Yoga Tantra; and 4) Maha-anuttara Yoga Tantra. With Kriya, Charya and Anuttara Yoga Tantra you can achieve enlightenment in this life, but you have to practice for a long life, for immortal life, to live for many hundreds or thousands of years and keep practicing, then it’s possible to achieve enlightenment even in that one life.

Maha-anuttara Yoga Tantra is the quickest way to achieve enlightenment in this brief lifetime of degenerate time. In the past, most people lived for up to one thousand years. Now those living even up to one hundred years are very few. I guess most people live until they are sixty or seventy years old. The life span has become shorter and shorter because of degeneration of mind. A brief lifetime can be three years; it can be any length of time—seven years, ten years, fifteen years, twenty years or twenty-five years. To achieve enlightenment in a brief lifetime of degenerate time you need to practice Highest Yoga Tantra, which has the extremely profound method showing the path.

The mind has gross mind, subtle mind and extremely subtle mind, and similarly the body has gross body, subtle body and extremely subtle body. The extremely subtle mind realizing emptiness is called clear light. [That realization is achieved] by developing the extremely subtle mind that directly perceives emptiness.

If you are able to actualize the wisdom of nondual bliss and voidness in this life, then you are the one who is able to achieve enlightenment, the unified state of Vajradhara, in this life. That means you are able to quickly free the sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to buddhahood, the peerless happiness.

From this you can understand that tantra has incredible skillfulness in the method, more than Sutra. Highest Yoga Tantra is the most skillful in method and wisdom.

People who practice tantra—lower tantra or especially Highest Yoga Tantra sadhana practices—are very fortunate, unbelievably fortunate people. These practices leave positive imprints on your mind, especially if they are done with lamrim: renunciation, bodhicitta, emptiness. If the motivation is pure, then doing sadhana practice is an unbelievably quick way to achieve enlightenment—so fortunate, unbelievably fortunate, so much merit.

It’s like those people who make profit every day of a million, billion, zillion, trillion dollars. Every day it’s like that, so the benefit [of tantric practices] is unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable. Even you don’t become enlightened in this life you have made so much preparation in the mind, you have planted the seed and you are much closer to realizations in the next life. You are much better able to attain the path and also in the next life you are closer and closer to enlightenment. This is a quick way to achieve enlightenment in this life or within seven lifetimes or sixteen lifetimes. It is amazing, amazing, amazing, wow!

If you don’t know all these benefits you think you are just wasting time or you have difficulty making the time to do your commitments. You feel like you have to do them and then you can’t have comforts like sleep, or the commitments take you away from doing work or many other luxury things, which are basically distractions. You need to know that all these distractions and comforts are the cause of samsara and the cause of the lower realms. So many people don’t know this and then think that all these comforts are what they should have and what they need.

Also you are not thinking of the benefits of these practices; how they are so rare and what an incredible opportunity you have this time. I can’t explain; it’s like a miracle, like a miracle, so rare. It’s hard to believe that you got the initiations and teachings from these incredible gurus, like His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who is like this time’s Buddha Shakyamuni, like previous buddhas who taught Dharma, but this time in human form as His Holiness the Dalai Lama. We don’t see that, how it’s unbelievable, unbelievable, so rare. In many ways this opportunity is unbelievable, but we don’t realize that.

Instead, what happens is we think that having the comfort and happiness of this life is the most important thing. We are not even thinking about our future lives’ happiness; our hundred, thousand, million, zillion, trillion future lives’ happiness, which are countless.

Until we actualize the four noble truths and the ultimate wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, which ceases the seed of delusion and karma, we will have to keep suffering. Therefore, it is more important to achieve total liberation from samsara forever. To be free forever from the suffering of pain and the suffering of change—all the samsaric pleasures such as music, food, sexual pleasure, our house, clothing, so many things. Not only the cessation of the suffering of change, but also the cessation of the third type of suffering, pervasive compounded suffering, from where the other two sufferings arise; total cessation of that. Then there is the blissful state of peace for oneself, ultimate happiness; that is unbelievable, so impossible.

We think the happiness of this life, which is very short, is most important, more important than all that future happiness. We don’t think of peerless happiness, buddhahood, the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations. We don’t think about trying to achieve that. Even if we are very intelligent, we still don’t know that and we think that the happiness of this life is the most important thing. This is a totally wrong concept. What is more important in reality is those other future lives and most important of all is buddhahood, the peerless happiness.

We have this wrong concept due to ignorance, thinking that the happiness of this life is the most important and then in this life we are totally distracted by that. We live our life with that [wrong concept] and that’s why we are unable to practice Dharma.

The works of this life are regarded as very important and we do that, but Dharma practice doesn’t get done; it gets delayed and delayed. Even if we want to practice, we delay and delay, and it doesn’t get done or we don’t find time for it. We only find time for this life. All the actions done with this mind become negative karma, meaningless, and they become the cause to be born in the lower realms and to suffer in this life and future lives. Our life becomes empty in this way.

Then at death time so much fear comes, even if we don’t accept reincarnation and karma. So much fear arises because we have created a lot of negative karma. First of all, there is the fear of separation from the family, the objects of attachment—our wife or husband, our children, our father and mother, our family. Then there is separation from our possessions, the objects of our attachment. Then, separation from the strongest object of attachment, our own body, that we have cherished the most, more than any other sentient being. We have incredible fear of being separated from that. We also fear rebirth in the lower realms, instead of being born as a human being or in the deva realm. So much fear arises, thinking that something terrible is going to happen, even if intellectually we don’t believe in reincarnation and karma.

This shows what is a meaningful life and what is a meaningless life; what is right and what is wrong. I want you to know that this is very important. Otherwise, you just think commitments are wasting your time or taking time away from sleep or your job or something else. It’s not like that.

We have been sleeping from beginningless rebirth and that’s why we are still in samsara. Even sleeping is supposed to become Dharma, and so is eating, walking, sitting, doing our job, washing, etc. These actions can become Dharma, the cause of happiness, but as I have explained already, because the motivation is only for the happiness of this life, we think this is the most important thing out of all the kinds of happiness. This is attachment, but we are totally distracted by it and these actions don’t become Dharma. Even our Dharma practice and meditation doesn’t become Dharma; even reciting prayers doesn’t become Dharma. This is the danger that happens.

Please understand all this, and of course, do whatever you can.

The other very important thing is to meditate on the lamrim and to study the lamrim. Meditate on the lamrim subjects by follow the outlines one-by-one, not just meditating on what you like and giving up what you don’t like. Start from the beginning and go to the end. You have to do this to train the mind.

For the rest of the day do every action with bodhicitta as much as possible, to benefit other sentient beings as much as possible. Then your actions such as sleeping, walking, doing your job etc., become the cause of enlightenment for all sentient beings.

Thank you very much.

Another very important thing is recitation of OM MANI PADME HUM mantra, Chenrezig meditation. First, generate bodhicitta—the motivation to free sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment by oneself alone. For that you need to achieve enlightenment, so for that reason you are reciting OM MANI PADME HUM.

Even reciting this mantra without bodhicitta, you collect more merit than the number of sand grains of the ocean; more than the number of snowflakes that fall when it snows; more than the number of drops of rain that come when there is rainfall. By reciting OM MANI PADME HUM one time, you collect more merit than drops of water in the ocean. It’s unbelievable, unbelievable.

If you recite this mantra with bodhicitta, you collect more than skies of merits. It is the most powerful purification and you collect the most extensive merits. This is the quickest and easiest way to be born in a pure land. Reciting OM MANI PADME HUM helps you develop compassion for every single sentient being, and it is the main cause of achieving enlightenment quickly.

You can recite OM MANI PADME HUM not only on your meditation cushion, but also while you are walking, jogging or going in a car. Tibetan people recite OM MANI PADME HUM while traveling or when they are selling things in a shop. Like that, they don’t waste time.

Tibetan Himalayan mountain people, from where I was born, do this. They are so lucky, even though they are beggars, Tibetan beggars or Himalayan mountain beggars, they know this and they recite OM MANI PADME HUM so easily. In this way they collect a lot of merit. In this life maybe externally they look poor, with no material objects, but they collect a lot of merit in this way.

Western billionaires don’t even collect the merit they would get by reciting OM MANI PADME HUM one time. Even though billionaires have unbelievable material objects and are very rich, they don’t collect as much merit as Tibetan beggars. Reciting OM MANI PADME HUM even one time makes a big difference. These Tibetan beggars or Himalayan mountain beggars, by reciting OM MANI PADME HUM now, in their next life they will become millionaires or zillionaires for many lifetimes.

Western or Middle Eastern billionaires or zillionaires don’t know this, they don’t know Dharma, they haven’t read Dharma, so everything they do—eating, walking, sitting, sleeping or doing their job—everything is done with attachment, just for this life, so it all becomes negative karma. Then in the next life they go to the lower realms. That’s the reality. This is just the reality. I want to inform you of that.

Thank you very much. Yes, I accept your confession, thank you very much.

Please, you must be aware that death can come at any time—this year, this month, even tomorrow, even today. It can come at any time. The only thing that can help is Dharma. When you practice Dharma, the mind becomes positive, virtuous. Unstained by attachment to this life; unstained by future lives’ samsara; unstained by self-cherishing thought; unstained by ignorance holding the I, the aggregates and so forth as truly existent, while they are not. This is talking about sutra not tantra. According to tantra explanations, the mind becomes unstained by ordinary concepts, ordinary appearances, unstained by the ordinary subtle mind and wind, which create samsara.

Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers ...

Too Busy for Daily Commitments
Date of Advice:
February 2017
Date Posted:
April 2018

A student wrote that he had stopped doing his commitments and practices because he was too busy. In this extensive advice, Rinpoche urged the student to spend more time on Dharma practice, which should be the main focus in this life. 

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
I understand well what you expressed, the problem that you mentioned, that you could not do your commitments and many practices. That is because you are mainly thinking of just this life, and not so much thinking of future lives, the happiness of future lives.

Future lives are not just one but numberless, until we achieve the two truths and become free from samsara, therefore we need happiness in all those lives. It’s like thinking that we only want happiness for today and not thinking about the day after tomorrow or next week or next year. It’s like only working for today’s happiness, which is unbelievably small-minded, such a tiny mind, thinking only of this life, but not the next life; it’s actually the next lives.

Also this is only thinking of yourself, but now, on top of that, there are numberless sentient beings. For example, I’ll repeat this again to give you a stronger idea, a complete idea—we have been experiencing the oceans of suffering in the six realms from beginningless samsaric rebirths up to now. In this life if we don’t get to practice Dharma, if we don’t get to practice the four noble truths, then we will suffer without end, we will experience the six-realm sufferings without end, again and again, and not only this, it is great shock that we will experience this again and again without end. This is an incredible shock because we don’t know, we haven’t thought about this. It’s a new idea for us, but it’s not new in the life.

For example, myself, I even forget sometimes what I ate yesterday or what I talked about to people, so no question about past years, early childhood time and so forth. I can remember only some things.

Therefore, Dharma is the only thing that helps. [At the time of death] we can’t bring our family with us, all our family has to be left, all the wealth has to be left, even the body that we cherished the most amongst the numberless sentient beings—the numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless humans, numberless suras, numberless asuras and numberless intermediate state beings—amongst them all, it is this body that we cherished most, but even this has to be left at time of death.

The only thing we can enjoy in the next life is if we practiced Dharma, nothing else. So Dharma is the first thing to focus on, then money and our job, etc. Our money and our job came from Dharma, but worldly people don’t know this. Only those who know karma and reincarnation know this.

Our job and our money came from karma, which creates wealth. Wealth came from charity and that came from Dharma practice, giving up attachment. The thought of giving is the meaning of charity, the definition of charity. By giving up attachment, miserliness, then we can give things to others.

The Buddha said that a good rebirth, a good body, a happy body, a higher rebirth, comes from morality. From practicing morality in the past, then wealth comes. Wealth comes from charity practices done in the past, so it comes from Dharma, from virtuous actions. You have to understand this.

To be free from samara, we have to follow the five paths of liberation—the path of merit, the path of preparation, the right-seeing path, the path of meditation and the path of no more learning. We have to understand those paths and how to practice them. The right-seeing path means the ultimate wisdom directly seeing emptiness only. Then from there we cease directly the seed of delusion and karma, which is the cause of samsara. Then we become free from samsara.

Now this is concerning only ourselves—we need to achieve everlasting happiness for ourselves, by being free from samsara. But there are numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless humans, numberless suras, numberless asuras and numberless intermediate state beings. They have been experiencing the oceans of suffering of each of the six realms from beginningless samsaric rebirths and they will be suffering again endlessly in the oceans of suffering of samsara, in each realm.

Those sentient beings who have met Dharma are very few; those who have met the right guru revealing the unmistaken path to buddhahood. Most people have not met Dharma, they don’t know karma, they don’t know how to create good karma to receive this. They have no opportunity to practice Dharma so they have to suffer again, they have to experience the oceans of suffering of each realm again, endlessly. That has to really make us feel great compassion, that we really need to help them right away, to free them from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to the peerless happiness—the cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations, buddhahood.

For that we need to achieve the state of omniscience, we need to understand directly the numberless sentient beings’ minds, their different karmas, the different levels of intelligence, all the details and all the different methods to fit them, to bring them from happiness to happiness to enlightenment.

Now, you see, this is an incredible responsibility that we have. All our past, present and future happiness, even the comfort we experience in a dream, every single comfort we receive, is by the kindness of every single hell being, every single hungry ghost, every single animal, every single human, every single sura, every single asura and every single intermediate state being. Therefore, every single sentient being is most dear, most kind to us, most precious, our wish-fulfilling one.

Not only that, even the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, who we take refuge in all the time in order to be free from the lower realms, to be free from samsara, to be free from lower nirvana and to achieve buddhahood, even they come from every single sentient being.

So now the kindness of sentient beings, their kindness to us is beyond that, it is limitless, it is just unbelievable. Not only that, all sentient beings have been our mother or father or anybody who has been most kind to us. Like that, numberless times from beginningless rebirths.

Generally, it is the mother who most children are close to. I know it’s quite rare, but some are closer to their father, however, usually children are closer to their mother. It is our mother who spends so much time caring for us and of course she gives her body; there is the kindness of giving her body. Relating to human beings, we spend nine months in our mother’s womb then we come out, so there is the kindness of giving birth, of giving her body, then protecting our life from hundreds of dangers every day and bearing hardships. Our mother bore so many hardships day and night, then she gave us education. This is not the first time—from beginningless rebirth [all sentient beings] have been our mother and have given us all these kindnesses. Unbelievable, unbelievable. This has been done by all the sentient beings. We have to realize this. Wow, wow, wow! Amazing, amazing, amazing!

When we are born, our mother sacrifices her life for us and sometimes she has died for us. Wow, wow, wow! Can you imagine? Even though there are numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas helping sentient beings, now we totally have the responsibility to repay the kindness of sentient beings. We have to free them from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations, buddhahood, the peerless happiness, by ourselves.

Now you have received a perfect human body that is almost impossible to find again and you have met Buddhadharma, even the basis, the four noble truths, a way to be free from samsara Wow, wow, wow! You have met the unmistaken teachings of the Buddha. Many people say they are Buddhist, but they don’t practice, they are cheated for their whole life. This means for thousands and millions of future lives they are cheated; they don’t get to meet Buddhism again or they meet a wrong religion, a wrong practice, in the future lives, for thousands and millions of future lives.

Here you have met the Mahayana teachings that contain the method to achieve enlightenment and how to help sentient beings, and not only that, you have met the quick path to achieve enlightenment, the tantra teachings and Highest Yoga Tantra. Through that you can achieve enlightenment in one brief lifetime of degenerate times, so you see, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow! Unbelievable, most unbelievable! Do you know how fortunate you are? It is most unbelievable, most unbelievable, how fortunate you are.

Therefore you have all the responsibilities. Before I was just talking about you, but now there are numberless sentient beings on your shoulder, so you need to practice Dharma. It is so important, there is no question, it is the most important thing, every year, every month, every week, every day, every minute, every second, to actualize the path. For that you need to purify the defilements collected from beginningless rebirths and collect extensive merits, the merit of wisdom and the merit of virtue, to achieve dharmakaya and rupakaya.

To help actualize the path, that starts with guru devotion. Guru devotion is the root of the path of enlightenment; correctly following the virtuous friend, seeing the guru as the numberless buddhas or as one buddha. However many gurus you have—one thousand or one hundred or one—they are the numberless buddhas, and the numberless buddhas are all the gurus. Seeing this from your side, realizing this from your side without any effort, naturally feeling that from the heart, for days, weeks, months, years, then you have the realization that causes you to correctly follow the guru’s wishes and advice. From that you can achieve all the rest of the path to enlightenment—the path of the lower capable being, the middle capable being and the higher capable being, the whole path to enlightenment—then you can help sentient beings in a greater and greater way, deeper and deeper.

Thank you very much. Here I want to explain this to you, for you to spend more time practicing Dharma. I want to show you how important it is to practice Dharma.

So your main practice is the morning motivation, The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment), then do Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga.

It is very important to do the six-session guru yoga. Among the sadhanas, doing that is the basis, it is very important to do.

Try to do the sadhanas at nighttime or daytime or anytime, rather than so much talking, gossiping and doing useless things. Actually, we have lots of time to do other things, our own enjoyments, so many things, but when it comes to practice we have no time or we are tired.

It is like this for us—we have no time, then [our practice] is left or postponed until the very end [of the day], then at the very end we are tired, so we go to bed or sleep comes without control, without choice. Anyway, you must try to do the six-session guru yoga.

Try to do the sadhanas, but at least do the mantras. Vajrayogini is very precious, so that when you die you will not be reborn in the lower realms, but you will go to Vajrayogini’s pure land where you can become enlightened and be able to enlighten numberless sentient beings. So, reciting this mantra is very precious.

The Eight Verses you can do every day, as it is mentioned, but every day you are supposed to live your life according to the first stanza and the second stanza. I have already given you the whole picture of the kindness of sentient beings, the different ways they are kind, so you are supposed to live your life according to the first and second stanzas of the Eight Verses. Think always, “I am the servant to others, to serve all the sentient beings. They are my Lord.”

When you are at home, think like that about all the family and when you are at a restaurant think you are the servant, to serve all those people. I already explained their kindness. Wherever you are—at the beach, in the street, at the airport or the train station—where there are a lot of people, you can always think like that. Think, “I am the servant, I am to be used by them like a wish-granting jewel, to fulfill all their wishes, to give them all the happiness, whatever they wish, whatever they need. I am medicine, arura, that heals all the sickness, I am the earth, and so forth.”   

As it is mentioned by Shantideva in The Bodhisattva’s Way of Life:

May I be used by sentient beings, whatever happiness they want,
Like the earth is used by sentient beings,
Whatever happiness is useful for them, to be used by them.

May I be used by sentient beings, whatever happiness they want,
Whatever happiness is useful for them, to be used by them.

May I be used by the sentient beings, like the wind,
Whatever happiness is useful for them, to be used by them.

May I be used by sentient beings, like the sky,
Whatever happiness is useful for them, to be used by them.
- [See Bodhicaryavatara, Ch. 3, vv. 18-22]

As long as space remains,
As long as transmigratory beings remain,
Until then may I too remain
To dispel the suffering of transmigratory beings.
- [Ch. 10, v. 55]

This is what His Holiness the Dalai Lama often uses when giving the wishing bodhisattva vows, so he then recites this.

Whatever problem happens in your life, you can relate that to your practice, you can use those verses. For those times, if you have memorized these verses by having recited them every day, but if you don’t recite them every day, remember them at the times when you need them if you can, like when there are problems. That is the purpose of saying them each day. 

Do basic practices like Chenrezig, reciting OM MANI PADME HUM mantra. I am making a book on how to recite OM MANI PADME HUM with different prayers and different requests to Chenrezig. This is a very important practice to do each day.

Also do the short Medicine Buddha practice. This is for success, not only for sickness and healing but for all success, to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings and to bring all sentient beings to enlightenment. So it is for everything, it is very important.

As I explained, do the morning motivation when you open your eyes, then for the rest of the day, whatever you are doing—eating, walking, sleeping, doing your job—if you are doing it with bodhicitta as much as possible, then it benefits others.

So please try. Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers ...

The Effect of Broken Commitments
Date of Advice:
February 2017
Date Posted:
November 2017

A student wrote that he had stopped doing his commitments, but had now started again.

My most dear, most kind, most precious wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter, you explained very clearly, so now you are trying to do your commitments again. That is extremely worthwhile.

I want to tell you something, the commitments the guru gave are very important to do. One thing is it affects not only this life, but it affects your next life—you can’t do any commitments or don’t want to do commitments in your next life and the next life after that, so you are affected for hundreds and thousands of lives. Therefore, it is very important in this life to put effort as much as possible, so as not to have a negative effect in your future lives. Otherwise for hundreds and thousands of future lives there is an effect and it gets worse and worse.

This life is very short. Generally, as you know, life is very short, death can happen this year, next year, next day, next week, today or tomorrow, not sure. The only thing that benefits us, that we can enjoy for all our lives up to enlightenment, is Dharma. That is all we can enjoy at the death time. So practicing Dharma in this life is the only thing that can help us.

Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers ...

Please find attached my daily motivation [The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment).] This is what to do when you first open your eyes.

Initiation and Tsa-tsa Commitment
Date of Advice:
February 2017
Date Posted:
July 2017

A student wrote that she had stopped her commitment after taking an initiation but was going to do the retreat. She asked if she should take initiation again before the retreat. She was also finding it hard to complete a tsa-tsa commitment and asked if the number could be reduced.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you for your email and sorry for the many eons of delay. In regards to your question about Guhyasamaja, yes, to receive the initiation again is best. You can do the retreat without taking the initiation again, but if you receive it again that is best.

You can reduce the number of tsa-tsas. Cut the number down by half, from what I told you before.

If possible, but it’s really not possible at all, then you can develop color pictures so other people can have them—not to a small size like 8 x 10 inches, but a very nice picture, the best art and the best quality. This is so other people can enjoy them and use them for prostrations, offerings and to collect a lot of merit.

This is my advice. Please make your life most meaningful with the thought of bodhicitta, day and night and in everything that you do.

With much love and prayers...

Confessing Broken Commitments
Date Posted:
August 2012

A student confessed that she had broken her commitments, because she was worried about her teenage daughter’s behavior and this had started a habit of laziness and forgetfulness. She advised that she had restarted her commitments and could also now read the lamrim in Tibetan.

My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. How is your daughter? It is very important since you made your daughter—of course her mind came from past lives, but you and your husband gave her this body —so your responsibility to her is to help her become a good human being. I am sure she is, but I am just emphasizing this. Help her to have a Dharma education as much as possible, slowly, slowly give her a Dharma education; this is very, very important. The more she learns Dharma, then the more she will practice. Learning Dharma awakens in her what is right and brings happiness to oneself and to numberless sentient beings, and what is wrong and brings harm to oneself and to numberless sentient beings. In this way she will practice creating the cause of enlightenment, ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara and full enlightenment. This is so important. Then as much as possible, create good karma. This can be done just by even one circumambulation of a holy object—a statue, stupa or scripture, whatever—to help her create as much virtue as possible. That’s the best gift to her and from that she will achieve happiness.

From one good karma she will experience happiness for 500 lifetimes and so on. So, for example, the result of killing one insect is that we will receive harm for 500 or 1,000 lifetimes. Then the opposite to that, giving up that, abandoning that act of killing, from just one karma we create so much good karma and if the action is done with bodhicitta then that action becomes the cause of enlightenment. If the action is done with renunciation, then it becomes the cause of ultimate happiness and if that one action is done by meditating on emptiness then it becomes the antidote to the rest of samsara, the antidote to ignorance and samsara. This is just an example. So from this we can apply it to other virtuous actions and especially understanding the incredible important of our motivation when doing any action.

Thank you for the paintings that you mentioned you have done and plan to do, thank you very much. I hope to see you very soon.

Please live your life with bodhicitta. It’s good to read the lamrim in Tibetan, but the main thing is to do effortful meditations and then effortless meditations. This is very important, this is the most important thing in your daily life. Then, practice and live the life with bodhicitta, as much as possible. Make this your motivation in everything that you do. Begin first with effortful meditations. So, this is a rough example of how to do that. First, it is important to meditate on guru devotion, if possible a little each day, or all the time, until you have stable realizations. Then spend six months mainly meditating on guru devotion, then six months mainly meditating on the graduated path of the lower capable being, then six months mainly meditating on the graduated path of the middle capable being, then six months mainly meditating on the graduated path of the higher capable being, then six months mainly meditating on bodhicitta and then six months mainly meditating on emptiness. This just means for that six months this is what you mainly focus on.

Then guru devotion—until you has stable realizations, no matter how many years it takes, keep going back over the subject. Then the gradual path of the lower capable being—detachment to this life and the next life, total detachment —realizations from perfect human rebirth up to karma, no matter how many months or years it takes to have the stable realizations. Continue through the lamrim step by step; meditate on the lamrim. Then train the mind on the graduated path of the middle capable being, then the higher capable being, then bodhicitta. After you realize bodhicitta, then mainly focus on tantra—your own deity’s generation and completion stage, but still, no matter what, meditate a little on emptiness every day, even if it is just for five or ten minutes, even something short like that. So the lamrim is the most important thing. Then the commitments that you have taken, you can do as much as possible.

With much love and prayers...

PS. Don’t worry, I am just telling you the main, important things to do, but please take it easy, relax.  

 

Purifying Broken Commitments
Date Posted:
November 2011

A student confessed to missing commitments and not doing her practices. She also asked about taking lamdre teachings.

My dearest Sharon,
Thank you very much for your very kind letter. It is completely OK—first, your strong request to purify karma; second, confessing to me. It came out very good to purify by reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names with prostrations.

For you, it comes out very good to be at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, if that is OK. If you dedicate your life, thinking, “Yes, I will do the Hevajra sadhana every day,” it will give you a little bit of courage, that you will and can do it. Think that your life is very short, in order to motivate yourself to do your best. If you think, “I am going to live a very long time, and there are many other things to do,” with attraction to this life and comfort, then you do not see the unbelievable benefit of practicing Hevajra. It is Highest Yoga Tantra practice, which is a quicker way to achieve enlightenment than lower tantra. Taking the lamdre teaching comes out very good, but if you feel you can’t continue to do the sadhana at all, then it is different and you should wait. Maybe it will be given again somewhere after some time. When you feel better, then you can take it.

If you can, do 500,000 prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas. Sometimes, in retreat, you can do more, but do a little each day according to your time– sometimes more, sometimes less. Count them like that.

Also, please let me know if you need some help sometimes, if you run out of money or something, OK? A billion zillion thanks for all your many years of service after you met the Dharma and especially for offering the holy nuns’ house in Aptos, which was such hard work, like Milarepa. I hope to see you soon. Please take care.

With much love and prayers...

 

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