My very dear Russell,
Thank you very much for your kind letter, sorry it took me so long to reply. Regarding where to go to study after you are released, now you can do the whole study program online. What comes out best for you is Instituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Italy, where they are doing the Basic Program and also the Masters Program online, and also Nalanda Monastery in France. Of course, it’s best if you can go there, but that may be hard initially, so to begin with you can take the courses online. [See FPMT Education Programs.]

The main thing for you to focus on is a very good, detailed teaching on lam-rim. That is the main focus and is most important. When you have completed the lam-rim, then focus on studying philosophy—first the Basic Program and then the Masters Program.

It is a very good plan to become a monk, excellent. It fits with meditation and also with study of the teachings, however the essence is lam-rim, then philosophy. I think it seems there may be some obstacles to you taking ordination, so you need to wait. Pray to be a monk, but just wait. Dedicate and pray to whichever deity you are familiar with; pray to that. I will accept to be your guru and I will pray to help you.

To start with, contact the centers that teach the Basic Program online, or if you are close to a center that is teaching the Basic Program, then you can study that way. If you have questions initially, see if the elder students can help you.

One thing that is very important for you is to read many of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s talks and teachings. Read different books; this is very good for you.

The most important, first thing is to study the lam-rim and not only to study, but to understand and to practice what you have learnt, especially the lam-rim, which is the essence of all Buddha’s teachings. Study and read the complete lam-rim from beginning to end three times. Then, for effortful experience on the lam-rim, please spend this amount of time on each of the topics of the lam-rim, by following this outline:

• Guru devotion: three months
• The graduated path of the lower capable being, from perfect human rebirth up to karma: two months.
• The graduated path of the intermediate capable being: three months
• The graduated path of the highest capable being:
  • Bodhicitta: three months
  • Emptiness: three months

These are the main times to meditate, but for effortless realization keep circling and spending this amount of time until you get stable realizations, no matter how many months or years it takes. Keep doing this, no matter how long it takes, until you have realization of guru devotion, renunciation of this life and the next life, then bodhicitta and then emptiness. After you have stable realization of bodhicitta, then you can focus on tantra.

Still do meditation on emptiness every day, for whatever length of time you can, even for five minutes. It is very worthwhile to meditate on emptiness every day. You can also do that while reading the Heart Sutra or any quotation on emptiness. Do the four point analysis or even meditate on the King of Logic, dependent arising—that the I is not truly existent, because it is dependent arising. Even just meditate on that.

Your meditation should follow the outline of the lam-rim. As a guide you can use The Essential Nectar which also has a commentary by my teacher, Geshe Rabten. You can also use other more elaborate commentaries on the lam-rim as a guide, for example, the Lamrim Chenmo commentary, etc.

The other preliminaries for you to do in this life are:

Tong-len: 40,000 times. This refers to meditating on tong-len. This is in order to purify negative karma that you have created since beginningless rebirth and in order to collect the two types of merit—the merit of wisdom and the merit of virtue. So this is the reason to do all these preliminaries. When you practice tong-len, each time you take the suffering of numberless sentient beings you destroy your ego, the root of samsara—the ignorance holding the I as truly existent.

Vajrasattva mantra: 500,000 times

Mandala offering: 30,000 times

Guru yoga: 100,000 times. This refers to reciting the migtsema mantra.

Every year do a few nyung-näs. This is a two-day very intensive retreat on Chenrezig, where you take the eight Mahayana precepts. It is an unbelievable way of creating skies of merit. There are quite a lot of prostrations by reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names, and also to Chenrezig. Doing this practice there is unbelievable, unbelievable purification, by reciting the OM MANI PADME HUM mantra. From that we create unbelievable merits and unbelievable purification. On the first day you only take lunch and on the second day you completely fast, without water or drinking. You totally fast for sentient beings, to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings, to purify sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering.

It is very good for you to do a few nyung-näs every year. Especially for a busy person this two-day retreat is very, very good, it is such a powerful purification. It is a quick way to purify and is the best way to go to the pure land, and to not wander endlessly in samsara.

Read the Arya Sanghata Sutra at least once each month.

It is very good for you to also study Lama Tsongkhapa’s Middle Lamrim, and also a very small lam-rim text by Lama Tsongkhapa called the Hymns of Experience. This is also good for you to use in your practice.

It is very important, just as a minimum, to do a direct meditation every day on the lam-rim, by reading one lam-rim prayer straight through, mindfully, such as the Three Principal Aspects of the Path, Calling the Guru from Afar, The Foundation of all Good Qualities and so forth.

Here I am giving you precise details on how you should practice Dharma, the path to enlightenment, the lam-rim, because that is the basis for subduing your mind and for receiving correct, right realizations. That should be the main aim in your life. The aim should not just be collecting information, like a computer. Just understanding Dharma is not enough.

So now I want to tell you in this way how to make this life become very meaningful before death comes. Aim to achieve at least four realizations of the lam-rim, or three realizations or two realizations or at least one realization, or to at least become close to realization, so that in your next life you can get the realization immediately. So please make preparation for that.

Then generally, follow this advice from the Kadampa geshe:

1. Looking with the eye at a great distance
The eye looking for long-term enlightenment, what is to be achieved.

This is like when we are travelling and looking far into the distance to where we will reach, like looking at enlightenment. The aim is to achieve enlightenment in the heart. This is the purpose of practicing meditation. Or like looking at Mount Everest that we are planning to climb, from here to enlightenment. We are looking at what we want to achieve, so extend the mind that way.

2. The mind should not be very small, the mind should be very extensive.

This is like when we are making airplanes, boat, houses, shopping centers, swimming pools, cities, countries, etc. We have to plan the many rooms and parts and all the things needed to develop it. We should plan like that in terms of learning Dharma, all the different subjects, for example in sutra and tantra.

So for you, plan the teachings—sutra, tantra, lam-rim, Basic Program and Masters Program.

3. At the same time the mind is relaxed, not attached. (This is the opposite of the attached mind.)

For the mind to be very relaxed, inside our heart needs to be very relaxed. Not squeezed, but relaxed. Otherwise if we don’t do that, then it is easy to get lung, because we are short of merit and there may be past negative karma from disturbing the guru’s holy mind and so forth.

This is how the Kadampa geshes planned.

Being in prison has become very meaningful for you. Otherwise you wouldn’t have met the Dharma, so because of being in prison you have met the Dharma, so it is very, very good. Those things that happened, this is because the mind is under the control of delusion and karma. So these things happen, like what made you go to prison.

It’s good to always have the idea to really do the best in this short human life. Life is very short and we can’t say how long we will live, but it’s very good to always think to do the best that we can.

Therefore I advise you to live your life with bodhicitta motivation, so that everything you do, as much as possible, is for the benefit of sentient beings—to free the sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and to achieve enlightenment. You need to achieve full enlightenment to help sentient beings, therefore do this and that study, practice, meditation, eating, walking, sleeping, sitting, doing the job and so forth, with this motivation.

Our life belongs to other sentient beings, to free them from the oceans of suffering and to bring them in full enlightenment, therefore we need to know how to practice Dharma.

Thank you very, very much.

I am giving you all these advices because we don’t have much opportunity to meet or to write and talk together, so that’s why I am giving you these life advices now—how to direct your life in Dharma and lam-rim, the path to enlightenment. Thank you so much.

With much love and prayers...

When you are out of prison, then depending on your situation you can ask me again about becoming a monk.

There are practices like prostrations by reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names a certain number of times that I haven’t mentioned here, but of course you can do some every day, for instance, Lama Tsongkhapa did many hundreds and thousands of prostrations by reciting the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas, and from that he had rainfalls of realizations. This came by reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas, so if you can do 100 prostrations, with meditation, every day, that is very good. If you can’t do 100, then do whatever you can.