What is most important for this world's peace, which has so much suffering, both globally and individually, is the practice of Dharma. For numberless sentient beings from whom we have received all our happiness from beginningless time, and from whom we are receiving and will receive all happiness, including liberation from samsara and full enlightenment – for those sentient beings who are totally obscured, in order to give them all happiness, one should learn Dharma.
One should learn not just one meditation, giving some peace, but the whole path, including Mahayana tantra. To be a scholar is not enough. One needs to train in the path, transform the mind into the path, including the root, guru devotion, transforming the mind from the mistaken thought to the guru, which is the biggest obstacle to enlightenment. One also needs to develop renunciation of the whole, entire samsara, and transform the mind into renunciation, the determination to be free from samsara, to emerge from and to be liberated from it, which is to let go of the attachment which ties one to samsara, to all the suffering, including death and rebirth. Also, one needs to develop the realization of emptiness, which cuts all suffering and gives the possibility to achieve all happiness, and as well to develop bodhicitta.
The root of samsara, ignorance, holds phenomena such as the “I” and aggregates as truly existent, while they are empty of that, and causes delusion and karma, and the results, the oceans of suffering of samsara, all the sufferings of each realm. One needs to transform the mind into bodhicitta, the ultimate thought of cherishing others, seeking enlightenment for sentient beings, giving up the selfish mind which interferes, stops, and blocks developing the whole path to enlightenment for oneself. Bodhicitta causes the cessation of the mistakes of the mind, the development of all understanding, and causes others all the happiness of this and coming future lives, including liberation from samsara and full enlightenment, causing all this for numberless suffering, obscured sentient beings.
Then one needs the two stages of highest tantra for quickest enlightenment, to liberate numberless sentient beings of each realm from suffering and to lead them to enlightenment as quickly as possible. This makes your life most meaningful and beneficial and allows you to use your life most productively for sentient beings.
A life spent practicing Dharma by meditating on the path and actualizing the path is the best life and the best service for sentient beings. Why? If your mind is not liberated from delusion and karma and the suffering of samsara, then you can't liberate others from samsara, its suffering and causes. It's like if you are drowning, you can't help others who are drowning. Through your experience you have to show sentient beings the path to enlightenment and bring them to enlightenment. Why do you need to do this? Because they, the sentient beings, need the highest happiness and the most long lasting happiness, and that is enlightenment. To do that, of course, first you have to become fully qualified. Therefore, you need to become fully enlightened. Life spent in ways other than this, other than meditating on the path and transforming the mind into liberation and enlightenment, are suffering, and you repeat this endlessly, just as it had no beginning.
My suggestion is to do Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga every day, as it contains the path in its stages up to enlightenment. There is the Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga that I put together and also its commentary, and within that there is guru devotion. To know guru devotion in the beginning is extremely important, then one can practice correctly, most carefully, without mistakes and with awareness. Otherwise, there are only mistakes and nothing good happens; things only get worse. Life, already with so much suffering, then becomes worse, heavier, only suffering. Practicing this guru yoga of Lama Tsongkhapa and lam-rim has skies of benefits, now and in the future. To read it every day, with mindfulness, brings one closer to liberation and enlightenment, which means closer to enlightening sentient beings, closer to their liberation and enlightenment. Practicing Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga has many special advantages, such as allowing you to develop wisdom, to be born in Tushita, Maitreya's Pure Land, and to meet Lama Tsongkhapa's teachings in the future. Why this result is important is that Lama Tsongkhapa's teachings are the clearest, purest teachings of the Buddha, having no mistakes. So, for practice, this is the quickest and easiest. Even if the teachings are the purest, if the person doesn't practice correctly, then enlightenment can't be achieved. Through this practice, one is also able to develop guru devotion, and then receive the blessing of the guru and achieve all the realizations. This way, all realizations, up to enlightenment, come from within. It is like when one has soil and water, a sprout comes from a seed, and then all the rest comes out.
Concerning practice, then one also needs to study. If one has found a qualified guru, who is living in the practice, having the attainment of the path, which I mentioned before, then there is no question (about suitability). If from the teacher's side, he/she is not an enlightened being – if one can't find a reliable teacher – then the most important text to study is lam-rim, in valid translations, containing the complete lam-rim. Valid teachings are not missing the lam-rim. Other philosophical teachings are there to understand lam-rim teachings in depth, clearly.
Read and meditate by following the lam-rim outlines. Also, study to give oneself a chance, beginning with the lam-rim and writing down questions if one doesn’t understand. Then check with others and with lamas who study well. So, like this, understanding can be developed. If one cannot decide if someone is a guru, then study with him or her for some time, then by being close, after some months or a year, or one to two years, then if you are able to trust and have devotion, then you can take this person as one's guru. In this way, you are protected, saved, and secure. Otherwise, later you end up with huge mountains of confusion and the heaviest negative karma.
In the meantime, read books which are valid. After having gone over the lam-rim once, two, or three times, then go through each meditation topic from Perfect Human Rebirth, spending maybe a month on each topic and meditating on it for some time. The time for meditation is not fixed, it's one's own choice – even half an hour is good. The most important thing is continuity. Then, one can achieve liberation and enlightenment and then enlighten others.
Spend one month per meditation topic, except to achieve shamatha you need a solitary place (that is the correct way) and all the conditions. When you finish emptiness, come back and do the meditations again till you achieve stable realizations of renunciation, bodhicitta, and right view. This means not just a few days’ experience but something long lasting, stable, and without effort, without needing to go through the reasons and quotations. The mind naturally goes on that path. One should meditate on guru devotion a little bit every day, with whatever time you have, till one gains a stable realization, till one guru is all Buddhas and Buddha is all the gurus.
In the breaktimes between meditations, keep the mind in bodhicitta, the thought of cherishing sentient beings, benefiting sentient beings – a bodhicitta motivation. Whether walking, sleeping, or eating, whatever one is doing, keep this mind. Keep the experience of the morning meditation throughout the day. Then one will be able to progress in the development of the realizations of the path, of renunciation, bodhicitta, and emptiness.
Some general advice for everyone is to do the practice of Chenrezig every day, together with the recitation of the mantra. There are skies of benefits which come from this, but the main point is to develop compassion for all sentient beings, for your friend, for strangers, and not only that, for the enemy. Otherwise, working to benefit them becomes very partial, very limited. Without compassion for all sentient beings, one can't have the realization of bodhicitta, which is the source of happiness for oneself up to enlightenment and the source of happiness for infinite sentient beings.
Without great compassion, one can't have the realization or entrance into the Mahayana path to enlightenment and hence can't achieve enlightenment and can't liberate countless sentient beings from the oceans of suffering and bring them to enlightenment. One can't fulfill the purpose or objective of one's life – to free sentient beings from all sufferings and enlighten them. So, for anyone who desires happiness and doesn't want suffering, and especially those who want to help others, one must do Chenrezig practice.
The other practice to do is Medicine Buddha, both mantra recitation and practice, reciting the names of the Medicine Buddhas, together with the Medicine Buddha mantra:
TADYATHA / OM BHEKANDZYE BHEKANDZYE MAHA BHEKANDZYE [BHEKANDZYE] / RADZA SAMUDGATE SVAHA
This is for powerful purification, merit, and success, and to fulfill all wishes, benefiting oneself and all sentient beings. This practice makes life so easy, grants happiness, liberation, and enlightenment and causes that to be received by others, who are numberless.
I can't say when I will be able to meet you, but I thought to give you this advice. Now it is up to you to make this one time, precious human rebirth useful.
