My most dear, most kind, most precious, most wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your request. The most important thing in the morning, I tell students, is to do the morning motivation practice called The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment). [Updated title: How to Make My Lives Wish-fulfilling.]
This is like kaka becoming gold. The worldly mind, the nonvirtuous mind, is transformed into virtue, changed to Dharma, and not only that, the self-cherishing mind, which has caused all the sufferings from beginningless rebirths up to now, and in the future causes suffering endlessly, the self-cherishing thought is transformed into bodhicitta, which is the root of the path to enlightenment and brings us all the happiness up to enlightenment. It brings all the temporal and ultimate happiness, liberation and enlightenment, to the sentient beings—the numberless hell beings, the numberless preta beings, the numberless animals, the numberless human beings, the numberless sura beings, the numberless asura beings and the numberless intermediate state beings. Therefore, it’s so important to do this morning practice.
It’s so important to do this morning practice (The Method to Transform). It’s unbelievable. If we live our daily life with bodhicitta, then everything becomes the cause of enlightenment. Then whatever action we do with our body, speech and mind, even eating, going to the bathroom, even sleeping, everything becomes a cause of enlightenment, then it means we can benefit every sentient being and help them achieve enlightenment. It’s so important.
Your purification is the meditation on emptiness. These teachings may help:
Every day do meditation on emptiness; that is unbelievable purification. That makes us see the ultimate reality of the I and of things, how everything appears to our hallucinated mind as the real ones, existing from their own side or truly existent, so that’s a hallucination, but in reality, they are empty of that.
There is the base I, for example. There is the base, but instead of that, there is this wrong projection, wrong belief, wrong appearance, hallucinated appearance of a real I, an independent I, truly existing from its own nature. This is false.
Then there is the wrong belief, the wrong projection, and from that concept the real I, real aggregates, real concepts, become the cause of suffering, and that is what creates our samsara—the oceans of suffering of hell beings, the oceans of suffering of preta beings, the oceans of suffering of animals, the oceans of suffering of human beings and the oceans of suffering of sura and asura beings. We have experienced this from beginningless rebirths, and if we still follow [the wrong belief] then we will experience all these sufferings without end.
So we can’t help ourselves and we can’t bring others to the ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara. We can’t help others become free from the oceans of suffering of samsara and we can’t bring ourselves and others to happiness, peerless enlightenment, the total cessation of obscurations and completion of realizations.
Realizing emptiness is necessary because ignorance is the root of suffering, of samsara, the root of our own oceans of samsaric sufferings. The ignorance holds the false I as real and holds the real I as false, and the real aggregates as false. It’s because of that, that we need to eliminate this. This is a most urgent thing. Without caring about that, there is no way to achieve enlightenment.
First we need to be free from samsara; first we need to eliminate this [ignorance], and the only way to do that is through realizing emptiness. So we are not only purifying all the negative karma; for that we also need to meditate on emptiness.
Please listen to my recent teachings: 2020 Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19. These teachings are on the internet, and from the beginning there is much talk on emptiness, besides other subjects. I will be teaching more on bodhicitta and emptiness as these subjects are not yet finished.
You can also do the four-point analysis from the lamrim teachings on the subject of emptiness.
Read Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand from beginning to end mindfully. That itself becomes a meditation. Also read my advice on how to do this and how long to meditate on the lamrim.
Sometimes, a little bit, you can let me know what you are doing, whether you are doing skydiving or going in the ocean or practicing. You can let me know from time to time and I will try to help. Later, if you want preliminary practices, you can let me know, but please start with this.
You are most welcome to enlightenment. This is the happiest life, not only benefiting and freeing yourself, but by meditating on the graduated path to enlightenment, the lamrim, you can benefit and help numberless sentient beings—the numberless hell beings, the numberless preta beings, the numberless animals, the numberless human beings, the numberless sura and asura beings, everyone. You can free them from suffering and bring them to enlightenment; you are able to help them. This is the happiest life; the best, most happy life. This is the happiest life; you should know this.
With much love and prayers ...
