My most dear, most precious, most kind, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind email. There is a very special mantra from the Golden Light Sutra, so recite this with bodhicitta. If you recite this mantra while just thinking about the happiness of this life, it doesn’t become Dharma, so you must recite it with bodhicitta, thinking to free the numberless sentient beings from each realm from the oceans of samsaric suffering and its causes, karma and delusion, and to bring them into the state of omniscient mind, peerless happiness. To be able to do that, you must achieve the omniscient mind. Recite the mantra to purify all the obscurations and negative karma collected since beginningless rebirth, to collect extensive merits, to actualize the path to enlightenment and to fulfill the wishes of sentient beings and the teachings of the Buddha. Recite this mantra eleven times. [Note: The special mantra mentioned in the first paragraph of the advice is not publicly available, in accordance with Rinpoche's advice.]

Also recite OM MANI PADME HUM [the Compassion Buddha mantra] and the Medicine Buddha mantra. Of course, recite those mantras with the same motivation.

There are numberless sentient beings. By watching documentaries on TV we can see an incredible amount of animals, including the animals in the ocean—the very tiny ones that we can only see with a microscope and the very big ones that eat the small ones. There are unbelievable, numberless animals, for example, ants, and there are numberless universes and numberless ants in each universe. I saw on TV recently some areas where there are unbelievable amounts of cockroaches and bats living in caves that are completely dark. It's unbelievable, unbelievable. When they fly outside birds eat them and when they come back again, more birds eat them, so it is unbelievable.

The number of human beings is nothing compared to the number of animals, the number of each type of insect. Even inside the earth, for example in caves, as you go deeper there are different animals and insects—wow, wow, wow. Then there are flies and the animals in the sea—the number, the amount of them is just unbelievable. So the number of human beings is very small when you compare it to the number of animals. Like that, there are numberless hell beings suffering unbelievably, and numberless preta beings. It’s amazing, amazing.

There is continuation of our mind, it is beginningless, and we have beginningless delusions, so that means we have beginningless karma. We have suffered as those animals numberless times and we have been like the animals we see on TV numberless times. We have been eaten by others and numberless times we have eaten them. Numberless times we have been an animal living in the forest, always in a state of fear, always looking for the enemy, always looking for food.

The fact that we have a human birth now is like a dream. We have prayed and practiced morality for so many lifetimes in order to create the cause to have this life. Achieving this human body comes from practicing pure morality; this is what creates the cause to receive a human body, so by practicing the pratimoksha vows we receive a perfect human rebirth with eight freedoms and ten richnesses, with the ability to practice Dharma. We have all the potential and all the opportunity to purify negative karma; we have the potential to not be reborn back in the lower realms and to receive a higher rebirth again, to be able to meet the Dharma again and to practice Dharma again, and also to be able to achieve ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara.

Taking this higher rebirth is especially so we can meet the Dharma, then take refuge and precepts. It’s not necessary to be a nun, but even [take] the lay precepts—five, four, three, two or even one precept—also the eight Hinayana precepts and the eight Mahayana precepts, that you can take just for one day.

From that there are unbelievable, unbelievable skies of merit that we are able to collect, then we can achieve ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara, by practicing the three higher trainings. We can achieve enlightenment, the peerless happiness, for sentient beings—to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and its causes and bring them to full enlightenment. For that, we need to achieve enlightenment, and the root of that is to practice compassion and bodhicitta.

This human life is so precious, more precious than the whole sky filled with silver, gold and diamonds. It is more precious than the sky filled with wish-granting jewels—all of that is nothing compared to the value of this precious human rebirth. If we have a wish-granting jewel we can't achieve a good rebirth, we can't stop being reborn in the lower realms and we can't achieve ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara. If we just have a wish-granting jewel, we can't achieve enlightenment for sentient beings, we can't liberate the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and we can't bring them to enlightenment.

This precious human life doesn’t last long, it can stop any year, any month, any day, any hour, any minute, any second, therefore Dharma practice is most important.

So, recite OM MANI PADME HUM and the Medicine Buddha mantra.

Please read one lamrim prayer, such as The Foundation of all Good Qualities, mindfully every day. If you can do Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga each day, that has a lamrim prayer within it; if not, then at least please read a lamrim prayer every day. Visualize the Buddha and then recite the lamrim prayer. It can be The Three Principal Aspects of the Path, Calling the Guru From Afar (the long one), Lama Tsongkhapa's Hymns of Experience, or another lamrim prayer. Recite a different lamrim prayer each day, if you like. 

Even reciting OM MANI PADME HUM one time, the merit is unfathomable, even if every single drop of the Pacific Ocean is counted. The merits of reciting this mantra even just one time cannot be counted. Even if every single dust particle of the earth is counted, the merits of reciting this mantra cannot be counted; even if every single snow flake is counted, the merits of [reciting] this mantra cannot be counted; even if every single drop of rain is counted, the merits of this mantra cannot be counted. It purifies negative karma and the obscurations collected from beginningless rebirths, and it collects extensive merits and causes us to actualize the path to enlightenment. In particular it helps us to develop compassion towards all living beings and to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and its causes by ourselves, and bring them to full enlightenment.

The Medicine Buddha mantra brings success. It is unbelievably, unbelievably powerful and by the way, it takes care of us in this life, all our obstacles are purified and all our wishes become successful.

Then the next thing, the most important thing to practice is to live the life as much as possible for others, as much as possible to benefit others, to free others from all the sufferings and their causes and bring them to full enlightenment.

So I was very happy to hear from you.

With much love and prayers...