My most dear, most kind most precious, wish fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your Dharma practice and service! I am very happy I got your letter and news.
First, I want to thank you numberless times for your practice. You have done so much practice, even though the West is full of distractions. There is much distraction for the objects of desire. In the West, businesses always advertise the objects of attachment and maybe sometimes the objects of anger, but usually they advertise objects of attachment. Then, whatever advertisement is the best, a lot of that [product] is bought, and the business makes a lot of money.
For those who practice Dharma in the West, it is a great challenge, a great thing. That person is a hero and a great hero. It’s like when there is a fight, having a brave mind and running toward the enemy to fight them. So, it’s like that, having that attitude to delusion, and practicing Dharma to go to enlightenment in order to benefit sentient beings.
Of course, correct practitioners, those who are doing the Six Yogas of Naropa, experience great bliss—I don’t know about thousands of times, but they experience many hundreds of times greater bliss. Of course, when we train, we need to have control and because of that [we can experience] great bliss. At that time, try to think there is no real I from its own side. Think it is a total hallucination, non-existent, and meditate on that emptiness.
Think there is no real pleasure from its own side, that it is totally non-existent. Meditate on that, have mindfulness in that. Try to use it in that way, so it becomes an antidote to samsara. If the practice is done with bodhicitta, at least with that motivation, then it becomes the cause for enlightenment.
Live your life with bodhicitta, the precious thought of enlightenment. Live your life with that precious thought of enlightenment.
Always read lamrim texts, Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand or The Essential Nectar, or even Lama Tsongkhapa’s Hymn of Experience, Foundation of All Good Qualities or the Three Principles of the Path. There are many different texts, however, Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand is very good. It is very extensive, very clear, experiential. It’s very, very good.
By reading the lamrim, that leaves good imprints as much as possible and brings your mind closer and closer to realization. Your mind goes closer and closer to enlightenment, and you become closer and closer to freeing the sentient beings from the oceans of samsara and bringing them to enlightenment. You become closer and closer each time you read lamrim.
With much love and prayers ...
P.S. In the evening, do Vajrasattva practice with the remedy of the four powers and in the morning or afternoon do prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas and recite [their names]. Also at night-time recite Vajrasattva mantra twenty-one times or one mala or half a mala. That helps. Thank you.
