My very dear one,
I am very sorry it took eons to reply to your letter. I have been carrying it around with me to all the countries I have visited since I saw you. You asked me what practices you should do to purify having had an abortion.

My suggestion is that you perform:

1. 400,000 Dorje Khadro fire pujas;
2. Prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas every morning, reciting the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas at least three times; that means you perform over a hundred prostrations each day;
3. Read teachings on impermanence and death, such as Pabongka Rinpoche’s Heart-Spoon [now revised and renamed The Heart's Utmost Need];
4. Recite one or half a mala of Vajrasattva mantras each night before bed.

These practices came out best in my divinations not just to purify this life’s negative karma but generally to purify negative karma from past lives as well. In one day, we commit so many of the ten non-virtuous actions, many negative karmas are created repeatedly, such as covetousness, gossiping, etc. Therefore, these practices are not just to purify negative karma connected with the abortion. We have created so much negative karma in just this life, not to mention past lives. The negative karma we have created since beginningless time is unimaginable. We have created the cause for so much suffering and we have yet to experience it because we have not purified it yet.

Any action performed with the motivation of attachment, seeking pleasure in and clinging to this life (not only anger), creates negative karma, except actions done in relation to holy objects (statues, stupas, and scriptures of the Buddha). Actions performed in relation to holy objects become virtuous because of the power of the holy object, even if you do the action with the motivation of seeking pleasure for this life.

One’s negative karma collected since beginningless rebirths is inconceivable – so many imprints have been left on the mental continuum. We need to purify all of these in order to have less obscurations and to have more opportunity for realizations on the path. Therefore, purification is essential in daily life, as well as collecting extensive merit, meditating on the stages of the path (the lam-rim), and onepointedly making requests to the guru, with guru devotion, seeing the guru as the Buddha.

Among these, it is said that purification is very important, as well as abstaining from committing the negative karmas again. Therefore taking vows: lay vows, the eight Mahayana precepts, etc., helps very much. Also, the bodhisattva vows and tantric vows are very powerful – the bodhisattva vows to achieve enlightenment and the tantric vows to achieve enlightenment quickly.

Therefore, the 400,000 Dorje Khadro fire pujas are not just to purify the abortion but all the negative karmas I mentioned.

Again, many apologies that it took me so long to reply. I really hope you will plan to do these practices. You can do some in the form of retreat, combining with the lam-rim, and you can do some a little each day with your work. In this way, they get done.

There is nothing more precious in this life than sentient beings, so that means benefiting sentient beings is the most important thing, more important than anything. The best benefit you can offer them is to free them from all sufferings and liberate them forever, such as freeing them from the cycle of death and rebirth. How does one liberate them from all the causes of suffering, delusion, and karma, so they can achieve everlasting, ultimate happiness and total liberation, bringing them to peerless, full enlightenment, and completing all realizations? The only way is by Dharma, nothing else can really benefit them except Dharma. The best way to free sentient beings from sufferings and their causes and bring them to enlightenment is by Dharma. To liberate others you have to liberate yourself from all suffering and its causes: delusion and karma. Therefore, Dharma is the most important thing, which brings your own benefit as well as others’.

Dharma is the most important thing in one’s life. The best practice is to meditate on the lam-rim each day, to achieve realizations in the lam-rim, step by step. During your job, whatever you are doing, eating, sleeping, etc., try to do it with the lam-rim, especially with bodhicitta: the thought of benefiting others. In this way, all your actions, because they are performed with bodhicitta, become pure Dharma, the cause of enlightenment, and the cause of happiness for all sentient beings.

I hope this advice helps you see how urgent it is to practice Dharma and why it is the most important thing in your life and for others.

With much love and prayers...