Practice Advice

Practice Advice

Date Posted:
November 2011

Rinpoche sent the following practice advice to a student in Mexico.

My very dear Berenice,
I am very, very happy to receive your letter about your practice and life, very happy that you are the librarian at the study group, happy that you attended the Kopan course and enjoyed it, with good Dharma friends. Living in the calm, small place in Mexico is good and it is good that you have done retreat with the nun.

I am sorry that your father died, but the Dharma has helped you and your Dharma practice is growing. Because you practice Dharma, your mind is calm and wise, even though great change occurred in your family. I am very happy that you have the intention to do the preliminary practices.

Your preliminary practices are:

  • 200,000 prostrations with the practice of the Thirty-five Buddhas
  • 50,000 tsa-tsas divided amongst Tara, Heruka and Lama Tsongkhapa
  • 50,000 Dorje Khadro fire pujas
  • Generating the four immeasurable thoughts (loving kindness, great compassion, joy, and equanimity): 50,000.

With the practice of generating the four immeasurable thoughts, we collect numberless merits because there are numberless sentient beings for whom we generate each of the immeasurable thoughts. It is said in the King of the Concentration Sutra that compared to offering umbrellas, banners, garlands of lights and so forth to the field, which has ten million multiplied by one hundred billion buddhas, doing the meditation on loving kindness for a little while generates more merit than that many worlds, buddhas and offerings. Each time we generate loving kindness, we collect that much merit. This is most unbelievable.

It came out best that you should become a nun in the future if you can. After you have read one complete lam-rim, then you can think about ordination, not this year or the year after, but in 2012, if you can manage it.

If you can, read the Golden Light Sutra a little bit each day, even a few lines if you are very busy. If you can, read one or two pages. This can benefit the world and sentient beings and brings you to enlightenment. Your life only goes up.

You should meditate as follows:

  • Five months on the general graduated path of the lower capable being
  • Two months on the general graduated path of the middling capable being
  • Five months on the graduated path of the higher capable being
  • Five months on emptiness

If you have studied the whole lam-rim well, just meditate like this one time. While you are doing this, every day you should also practice one meditation on guru devotion by following the outlines in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. Once you have read the commentary, the other text for daily meditation is The Essential Nectar. There is no particular outline in this text and it is neither very short nor long, but very inspiring. When you have time, spend a little longer. If there is no time, you can make it shorter, whatever you feel is better.

Meditate on guru devotion as much as possible every day by following the outlines, until you see the guru is all the buddhas, discovering this from the bottom of your heart. This realization should be very stable for weeks, months, and years, not just for a few hours or days. For example, meditate for one week each on the eight benefits of correctly devoting yourself and the eight shortcomings of not correctly devoting yourself. Then, there are the four major outlines that prove to your mind that the guru is Buddha. You can do this for one month. Then spend two weeks on the kindness of the guru. Repeat this process until you gain realizations.

For the general graduated path of the lower capable being, meditate on the perfect human rebirth up to the topic of karma. It doesn’t mean you meditate on everything in one day. Do whatever you can, then continue the next day and so forth, within five months. Then repeat the process. Do the same for the general graduated path of the middling capable being and the graduated path of the higher capable being.

After that, like the process of meditating on guru devotion, go back to the meditation on the perfect human rebirth, its usefulness and how difficult it is to find again. Try to achieve each realization up to karma. You have to decide how to do your meditations. Depending on your work and time, sometimes you can meditate longer, sometimes shorter, depending on the particular day. You can do meditation also while walking, not necessarily always sitting. You can also do it outside your room.

Your main deity to achieve enlightenment quickly, to enlighten all sentient beings quickly—all the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, asuras, and suras—is Tara Cittamani and Secret Chenrezig Gyalwa Gyatso. You can choose the one towards whom you have a stronger feeling. Take the initiation, read the commentary and do the nearing retreat. In order to receive the Tara Cittamani initiation you need another Highest Yoga Tantra initiation, such as Guhyasamaja, Yamantaka or Heruka, as a preliminary. This is because Tara Cittamani has the body mandala.

Thank you for your sincere practice and for benefiting the world and all sentient beings. That is the best benefit for your parents.

With much love and prayer...