Dear Michael,
Your main yidam is Guhyasamaja. You can also take the initiation for Kalachakra, but your main practice is Guhyasamaja. Your general practice is Medicine Buddha and Chenrezig. Holly can give you the name of the Medicine Buddha text for you to pick up at the center. It is not the short Medicine Buddha puja text and not the one with the title Healing. It is the text that has the visualization of the Medicine Buddhas above your crown.

Every day, if you can, practice Lama Chöpa, the elaborate Guru Yoga, containing the lam-rim and lo-jong, which is very, very meaningful. If there is no time, then do the short Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga, together with the lam-rim prayer The Foundation of All Good Qualities, Calling the Guru from Afar, and Lama Tsongkhapa's Hymns of Experience. You can alternate, reciting different lam-rim prayers.

Begin with that, and on the basis of that, practice lam-rim meditation before absorbing the merit field. First, meditate on impermanence and death, a bodhicitta motivation for life, and chant a minimum of one mala of OM MANI PADME HUM every day. If you can, recite two, three, four, five or ten malas—that would be incredible. After doing this every day, in public—on the road, in restaurants, wherever hundreds, thousands, million and billions of people can see us, their negative karma is purified. They cannot be reborn in the lower realms and they achieve rebirth in the higher realms. Sentient beings who see us receive these benefits.

When we swim in the ocean, we bless the water by generating ourself as Chenrezig. Our body becomes a relic and blesses the water. The holy water purifies the numberless sentient beings in the water; the sharks and so many other sentient beings who eat other sentient beings. All the negative karma of the big ones eating the small ones is purified. They don't get reborn in the lower realms and they have a higher rebirth.

Whoever we touch has their negative karma purified, and whoever touches us has their negative karma purified. When our breath touches other sentient beings, their negative karma is purified. When the wind touches our body and then touches other sentient beings, their negative karma is purified. Even when we die and our body is burnt, the smoke from our burning body purifies sentient beings and they have a higher rebirth.

Practices

• 200,000: refuge
• 400,000: Generate the four immeasurable thoughts together with reciting the prayer.
• 500,000: mandala offerings
• 300,000: prostrations reciting the names of the Thirty Five Buddhas
• One month: reading the Diamond Cutter Sutra. There is no fixed number to recite.
• One month: reading the Golden Light Sutra
• One month: reading the Arya Sanghata Sutra

These practices bring unbelievably powerful purification of negative karma and collect extensive merit. When this happens, all our wishes are fulfilled. That doesn't mean only this life’s wishes. That is not as important as the wishes for future lives, liberation from samsaric suffering and enlightenment for all sentient beings. All of this can happen, ultimately liberating all sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bringing them to enlightenment. All of this depends on purifying negative karma and completing all the accumulations of merit. The more this is done, the quicker we can achieve enlightenment for all sentient beings.

At the beginning, do three months of meditation on guru devotion, taming the mind to attain the path to enlightenment in order to liberate numberless sentient beings in hell from oceans of samsaric suffering, numberless hungry ghosts from oceans of samsaric suffering, numberless animals from oceans of samsaric suffering, numberless human beings from oceans of samsaric suffering, numberless asuras from oceans of samsaric suffering, and numberless suras from oceans of samsaric suffering, and bring everyone to enlightenment. This is the purpose of life; the real goal of life.

After that, continue with meditation on guru devotion every day. There is no fixed amount of time to spend on it; that is up to you. Do five, ten, fifteen or twenty minutes of meditation on guru devotion, following the outline.

• 0ne month: the graduated path of the lower capable being. Meditations from the perfect human rebirth to karma
• Five months: the graduated path of the middle capable being
• Five months: bodhicitta
• Four months: emptiness

This is the main focus, but it doesn't mean you only do this. It is just the main focus. When you have finished, start all over again, from wherever you have not gained realizations.

For a lam-rim commentary, there is Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand by Pabongka Rinpoche, and the more extensive Lama Tsongkhapa's Great and Middle Lamrim. I suggest Lama Tsongkhapa's Middle Lamrim. Later, when you have learned more, go on to the Great Lamrim. Use Lama Tsongkhapa 's outline for the meditation; it is quite extensive. Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand is shorter. The other good and effective guideline is The Essential Nectar. This doesn't have outlines, but you can use it for meditation. It is a little elaborate for a lam-rim outline.

The main practice now is the lam-rim, in order to achieve realizations of bodhicitta in this life; that should be the goal or project. If you receive a Highest Yoga Tantra initiation, do the short, medium or long sadhana. Tantra is not your actual practice now, but the lam-rim, in order to have realizations of renunciation, bodhicitta and right view.

Every day, at the very least, pray to achieve enlightenment for all sentient beings in order to enlighten them. You must recite one lam-rim prayer, to plant the seed of the whole path to enlightenment. If you do that one, two or three times, however many times you do it, that many times you plant the seed for enlightenment, and the qualities to achieve lam-rim realizations, which are the foundation of the tantric path. Another thing to do is to read the prayer of your own yidam/deity's path, to plant the seed for enlightenment. Doing these two is the minimum, essential practice.

This is how to make preparations in your mind to be able to enlighten all sentient beings. The rest of the day, live your life with a bodhicitta motivation, the good heart, and the thought of benefiting all sentient beings. Whatever you do—working, sleeping, eating, drinking, or walking—as much as possible have the thought of benefiting sentient beings, of freeing them from all suffering and bringing them to full enlightenment.

The reason I am giving you all this practice is because we meet only rarely, and it is not very easy to meet other lamas and get advice. Therefore, I am giving you the guideline of what to do in your life, what to practice, in order to accomplish lam-rim realizations. This is the very meaning of life. This is what you must do even if you have the vast knowledge of the hundreds of volumes of Buddha’s teachings of sutra and tantra, or if what you know is very little. If you are not meditating on the lam-rim and not attaining realizations, the meaning and purpose of life is not fulfilled. Life is still empty, even if you have great intellectual knowledge.

With much love and prayer...