My dearest one,
Thank you for your letter. For you, meditation comes out better than service or studying Dharma. The main deity for your quickest enlightenment is either Heruka and Hevajra. From these two deities, please choose according to whichever deity you have the stronger feeling for. You can take other initiations and do other retreats, but of the two, the one you have the strongest feeling for is the main deity to practice in everyday life. You can take both initiations, but the main deity for everyday life can be your choice, in order to enlighten sentient beings quickly, so they don't have to suffer for a long time. You will need to receive the commentary on the practice and study it, then do retreat.

Regarding lam-rim meditation, the scopes and subjects are the main focus, but this doesn’t mean that you can’t meditate on other subjects. Circle like this four times, and if there is still no renunciation of this life, then practice lam-rim meditation topic by topic till you achieve realizations of what you haven’t achieved before, from the perfect human rebirth, up to karma and then the higher scope. Achieve realizations while practicing guru devotion, following the outlines, for however many weeks and months it takes, to gain the realization that the guru is all the buddhas and the Buddha is all the gurus, till there’s no separation from the bottom of your heart.

Meditate on generating renunciation of the next life’s samsara, then focus on bodhicitta. Regarding emptiness, do at least one meditation every day. This realization can be actualized at any time, depending on the accumulation of merit and past lives' collected imprints.

There are numbers of preliminaries to do, but do the guru yoga of Lama Tsongkhapa every day or after some time, Lama Chöpa would be excellent. I am giving Lama Chöpa commentary in Indonesia and Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga in Singapore.

Following the advice sheet, do 135 prostrations every morning or evening. Some lamas do either or both. Daily practice is an unbelievable thing. In the morning, bless your speech, then motivate for life.

On the basis of doing Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga every day, before the guru enters your heart, do the other lam-rim meditations during the first session. For other meditation sessions during the day, include refuge, visualization of the merit field, the seven limbs, a short or long mandala offering, then motivate, thinking, “Since beginningless rebirths I have been experiencing the suffering of the lower realms and the general sufferings of samsara. The purpose of my life is to free sentient beings from samsara and lead them to enlightenment. Therefore I'm going to do this meditation.”

At the end, make extensive dedications, also recite the King of Prayers, Lama Tsongkhapa's Prayer for the Beginning, Middle and End of Practice, the Bodhicaryavatara dedication chapter with tong-len, when it talks about the sufferings of hell, and the Maitreya Buddha Prayer or the Blissful Realm Prayer.

Generate bodhicitta motivation, then go to bed and practice sleeping yoga, after having practiced Vajrasattva before the King of Prayers recitation. Recite one mala, half a mala, 21 mantras or 28 mantras, in that order, to stop negative karma increasing and to purify this and past lives' negative karmas. Doing the practice with the remedy of the four opponent powers makes the mind very comfortable, with no fear of death. Then go to bed.

When going to bed, think: “The purpose of my life is to benefit sentient beings, to free them from the ocean of samsara, and bring them to enlightenment. Therefore, I am going to practice sleeping yoga.” One way is to use sleep like medicine—to be healthy in order to serve sentient beings. This is the basic idea. For more detail, visualize the guru on the crown of your head, and with guru devotion meditation, think that the guru is Buddha and try to fall asleep with that virtuous thought. The other way is to think, “Sentient beings are suffering; in order to liberate them from suffering and its causes, however many hours’ sleep I have, may it become Dharma.” Generate loving kindness, also emptiness, looking at the I as empty and illusory. All phenomena and the I are empty. Meditate like this in order for sleep to become Dharma. Sleep with bodhicitta in order for it to become a cause for enlightenment. Sleep with renunciation of this and the next life, and wish to free beings from this in order for sleep to become the cause for liberation from samsara.

When practicing tantra, visualize yourself as the deity and also visualize the syllable in emptiness, both in activity and non-activity. Then, Highest Yoga Tantra uses ignorance in the path to enlightenment. Meditate on the nine rounds of mixing.

With much love and prayer...