Practice Advice

Practice Advice

Date Posted:
October 2005

A student wrote asking Rinpoche for practice advice.

My very dear Constance,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I did my Mickey Mouse divination and in order for you to achieve enlightenment in the quickest way and to be able to enlighten sentient beings most quickly the main deities for you to practice in this life are:

  • Heruka
  • Vajrayogini
  • Most Secret Hayagriva

From these three, Heruka and Vajrayogini are the best. If it is difficult to do both practices then I suggest Vajrayogini. Vajrayogini practice is extremely profound and contains important secret points of highest Tantra to enable you to achieve enlightenment quickly in one brief lifetime of this degenerate time. At the same time, it doesn’t have a very extensive mandala, with a lot of deities and details; the deity has a very simple appearance, with one face and two arms. The Vajrayogini practice has 4-5 special qualities and advantages. Please study the complete path of Vajrayogini. Before taking the initiation you need to take a great initiation as a foundation and preparation. Heruka is the best one for that.

After that, if you get an opportunity, you can take the initiation of Most Secret Hayagriva, which is the special deity of Sera Je College. If you receive the initiation then you can also do this practice. Maybe in your past life you were a Sera Je monk who didn’t have strong renunciation and didn’t keep pure vows. Maybe you became attached to a kangaroo and then were born in Australia (this is a little joke to put a smile on your face).

The conclusion is that what makes your life most beneficial is tantra, which is the quickest path to enlightenment. What makes it the quickest path is through practicing lam-rim – the three principals of the path – which comes from guru devotion. Guru devotion is the root of the path to enlightenment – looking at all the buddhas as your guru and all your gurus as all the buddhas. The more that one can practice this the less hardships and difficulties one will have. One is able to have more success, to fulfill one’s wishes, complete the path, eliminate the defilements, complete the path of merit, wisdom and method, and achieve enlightenment, liberating so many sentient beings from all the sufferings and defilements. You do this by enabling sentient beings to achieve the path and bring them to enlightenment. This all comes from obtaining the guru’s advice and putting the teachings into practice. However much success one has depends on how much guru devotion one has.

Whatever service to your teacher needs to be done is the best purification and best way to fulfill one’s wishes. It is the best way to achieve all happiness up to enlightenment and the happiness of all living beings, temporary and ultimate happiness: liberation from samsara and ultimate enlightenment.

With much love and prayers...