Request for Practices

Request for Practices

Date Posted:
July 2006

A student wrote to Rinpoche requesting practices.

My very dear Jane,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. You mentioned you work in Sikkim. I recently visited Sikkim to see the very large Padmasambhava statue there. It was amazing. It is very good that those people have been able to collect incredible merit and benefit sentient beings by making that statue. I am not sure if you were there in Sikkim when I was there recently. I gave a Chenrezig initiation: “Chenrezig Liberating from the Lower Realms” at the Sera Je Monastery in Sikkim. They built such a beautiful monastery and I heard that maybe 1,200 people came to the initiation. I gave some teachings and advice. I couldn’t do much as it was just one afternoon and there was translation into Nepali. Maybe you were there, I am not sure.

I was very impressed by the people because it seems that many young people there have faith and devotion. That was my first time meeting the people of Sikkim. It seems that many Sikkimese came to that initiation. The monks were very happy because usually they don’t come much. There were Tibetans there, too, and also, of course, Sherpas. Then I went down to Siliguri. There is a Segyu Monastery there. I have been offering food to them since almost a year ago, maybe for about 100 monks by now, so they wanted me to go there. I had lunch there and they asked for some advice. I saw so many people, and there was so much devotion, especially the young people showed devotion. It inspired me to go back there, and also to do more Dharma activities for them.

For your quickest enlightenment, to be able to enlighten sentient beings most quickly, you need a deity of highest yoga tantra to practice. For you, that is Secret Vajrapani (Vajrapani Great Wheel). It doesn’t mean you can’t take other deities’ initiations and practice them, but this is the main one to practice being one with day and night. Then, through this practice, you actually become the deity (which means enlightenment, which means your body, speech, and mind become the deity’s body, speech, and mind) and then through this, you can enlighten all sentient beings. Through this practice, you bring all sentient beings to this deity’s enlightenment. You are able to free all beings from the ocean of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment.

Here are your preliminary practices to do to collect the necessary conditions—the merits to have realizations of the path to enlightenment and purification of the obstacles and defilements:

400,000 Vajrasattva mantras
You can do this in the form of retreat (when there is a big number to finish), but also you can continue at home, wherever you are. You can do a few malas each day: one, two, three, four, five, whatever. So, you can count like that. Then, again, finish some in the form of retreat, being more strict and formal. If possible, also do retreat with the Eight Mahayana Precepts. It is the most powerful way to do it. This way, you are doing two very powerful practices combined. It is incredible purification. It is like one small flame can burn down a whole mountain, many thousands of acres of land, or can burn a whole city. If you let the fire burn and spread, it can burn the whole city. One small flame burns a house. Then it reaches the next house, and the next house, and the next, like that. With the Eight Mahayana Precepts, you collect so much merit and bring so much peace and happiness to the country where you are, to that area, so there is no question about yourself, about your benefit, and the happiness of this life. From that, all happiness comes. You achieve enlightenment, liberation from samsara, and the happiness of future lives, including the happiness and fulfillment of your wishes in this life. In the FPMT, usually we do the practice of taking the Eight Mahayana Precepts many times in retreat, not necessarily every day, but as much as possible. Also, doing it in retreat in a group is a very wise thing to do. It is also performed to stop war, famine, disease, dangers, poverty, and dangers from water, fire, and air. In the motivation, when you take the vows of the precepts, it contains that purpose for taking the vows, and you can also motivate in that way.

It is great that you have already done three months of retreat, but it still comes out in my observations for you to do this. That means, even if somebody had already recited the mantra one billion times, if it still comes out in the observations, then they still need it. That is the idea; that is the point.

Also, it comes out in my observations for you to do 50,000 tong-len. That is the preliminary of bodhicitta. This is the most powerful one to do (the requesting prayer together with the meditation of giving and taking). Here, you take sufferings and the causes of sufferings, including the negative imprint—take all sentient beings’ sufferings, including the delusions and karma, together with the negative imprints, and also the undesirable environments. For example, in hell, there is the ice fire, the ice mountain, the burning ground, the iron house; then for the pretas, the environment is a very depressing place with no water, and is so hot and cold; and for the human beings, the environment is a very dirty place full of thorn bushes. You take the environmental sufferings as well, those kinds of things, in the form of black pollution, and you give it all to the ego and destroy the ego—one’s own worst enemy. This is the greatest demon that has interfered so far with your being able to achieve enlightenment. It hasn’t allowed you to achieve enlightenment so far, has not even allowed you to achieve liberation from samsara, and hasn’t allowed you to enlighten all sentient beings, not even one. In these ways, you can see, one’s own ego is not only an enemy to you, but an enemy to all sentient beings.

Also, you collect countless merits by taking all the sufferings, causes of suffering, and undesirable environments. Then, when you give, you collect so much merit by giving your body as a wish-fulfilling jewel, and your possessions, to all sentient beings. However many possessions you have, they are given to sentient beings. So, however many possessions you have, you collect that much merit by giving them to sentient beings. Because sentient beings are countless, you collect countless merits with each possession.

Then, by giving all the past, present, and future merits, the three times’ merits, you collect vast amounts of merit. You give all your future happiness—your present happiness, from the next minute’s happiness up until enlightenment, including liberation and the realizations—to each and every single hell being, hungry ghost, animal, human, sura, and asura being. You can see that sentient beings are countless. By giving to each of them, you collect so much merit. You can’t imagine how much. I think if you really knew how much merit you will collect, you would faint and fall down– it might be difficult to get up! I hope it’s not for a long time! I hope people won’t take you to a hospital or a psychologist! I hope your family or friends don’t take you to the hospital because of it!

There is a prayer from Nagarjuna’s teachings:

Whatever sufferings there are, may they ripen on me; whatever happiness I have, may it ripen on sentient beings.

With the first part, you do the practice of taking; with the second, you do the practice of giving. Then you count on the mala (each time you recite the verse). I think you will be blissed out from this practice and that sentient beings will also be blissed out!

For you, there are not so many other preliminary practices to do. The other thing is to recite the Diamond Cutter Sutra 4000 times.

The last one is to do 300,000 Dorje Khadro burning offering pujas.

That’s it.

For lam-rim meditations:

  • Lower scope – four months
  • Middle – three months
  • Bodhicitta – four months
  • Emptiness – one month

This is done on the basis of guru devotion every day. The time you spend on the meditation is up to you, there is no fixed time for how long to do the meditation. You can do it for one hour, a half hour, 15 minutes, any amount of time, but do it every day as a daily practice until you see that one guru is all the buddhas, from the bottom of your heart, and it is very stable, long lasting, and that one buddha is all the gurus. After that, you don’t need to spend that much time on it. You still need to meditate a little bit to stabilize the realization. It is the same with any lam-rim meditation that you achieve. When you finish all of the above lam-rim meditations, do the same thing over again until you achieve the stable realization of each meditation.

For the deity practice, you need to receive a great initiation (Secret Vajrapani), then do the retreat, and do the daily sadhana practice.

Until you achieve the realization of bodhicitta, you should put more effort into lam-rim. Then, the next stage is tantric practice. If you do it the other way round and spend more time on tantra and very little time on the lam-rim, it will take a long time and you won’t achieve much. You can’t complete the tantric path without lam-rim. That means you can’t achieve enlightenment without lam-rim, the three principal paths.

The Diamond Cutter Sutra is incredible. It is one of the most profitable practices, because the root of all sufferings, yours and others, is the ignorance holding the “I” as truly existent, even though it is empty of that; and the ignorance holding the aggregates as truly existent, even though they are empty of that. The only antidote to cut that, to get rid of that, and through which to achieve liberation, the total cessation of the suffering causes—delusions and karma—is the wisdom realizing emptiness. This is the subject of the Diamond Cutter Sutra, emptiness. So, each time you read it, it leaves so many positive imprints. Without taking much time and without many difficulties, it is easy to actualize wisdom. You also create a lot of merit, so it helps to actualize bodhicitta quickly and all the other realizations. That is the business, that is the deal with the Diamond Cutter Sutra—so much merit is created that whatever you wish, for example, to help others, you can achieve easily. In Washington State there is one lady who works at Walmart. She has almost finished memorizing the Diamond Cutter Sutra. If you recite the Diamond Cutter Sutra many times, of course there is no worry about death at all. Goodbye fear of death. Goodbye fear of the lower realms. Almost, you can say, “A Diamond Cutter Sutra a day, goodbye lower realms.” Also, you can say, goodbye to self-grasping, which has cheated you, totally controlled you from beginningless rebirths, and made you suffer countless times—in the oceans of hell sufferings, hungry ghost sufferings, animal sufferings, human being sufferings, sura sufferings, asura sufferings, and intermediate state beings sufferings, etc. Also, reading it is an incredible source of collecting extensive merit. If, while you are reading it, listening to it, even just by hearing about it, if you continue with faith, you collect so much merit, it is mind blowing, amazing, incredible, wow! It makes you laugh.

If you made an offering of your body to sentient beings the number of times equaling the number of sand grains in the Ganges in the morning, then again at noon, and also in the evening, and continued every day, that would be incredible. Even if you were to make charity of your body to sentient beings only one time, it would be incredible. If we compare that many acts of charity with having heard the Diamond Cutter Sutra and not giving up faith, the latter collects much greater merit than the other. So, there is no question that if you read, listen to, write, memorize, or learn about the Diamond Cutter Sutra, there is far greater merit than just having faith in the Diamond Cutter Sutra.

Also, the sand grains we are talking about are not ordinary sand grains, they are very, very fine atoms. There are seven extremely fine atoms. The river Ganga is not the river Ganges in India, but refers to the Pacific Ocean. So, you can see that the number is incredible, and so is the merit that you collect. Again, you can do some of the recitations in the form of retreat and then, at other times, when you are doing a job, every day, you can recite it one, two, or three times, however many you can. Then, again, you do it in the form of retreat, for two days, three days, seven days, a month, a few months, whatever. When you do it in the form of retreat, do a half-hour or one hour on the lam-rim and then read, say for two hours, for the rest of the session. That is just an idea, the amount of time is up to you, it is not fixed. If you combine it with lam-rim, that is extremely good.

In the morning practice guru yoga, prostrations by reciting the 35 Buddhas’ names, and recite the rest of the prayer at the end of the prostrations. Then, at night practice Vajrasattva, and before bed, if you can, recite the King of Prayers, the most extensive dedication prayer, dedicating your life to sentient beings. That is another sutra that is also incredibly powerful for purification and collecting extensive merits. If you recite that when you die, you go to Amitabha Pure Land, there is no doubt.

Don’t worry. You don’t have to worry about all of this. This is your lifetime practice. It is not something you can finish in one or two years. You don’t have to think about that. The main thing is to just do it and become enlightened to be able to enlighten sentient beings. You are incredibly fortunate to be able to have this opportunity to do this. The more you understand Dharma, the more you will understand how fortunate you are, especially with the Diamond Cutter Sutra.

The lady at Walmart is a cashier. Before she started reciting the Diamond Cutter Sutra, while working, she recited Vajrasattva. She didn’t have a prayer wheel, but had heard about them. She didn’t know much about the benefits, but somehow she was very drawn to that idea. So, in Walmart at the checkout stand, she used the rotating bagging table, where you hang bags, and turned it like a prayer wheel. She had some intuition about it. I think she has a lot of positive, natural imprints from past lives. So, I sent a prayer wheel to her. Mine is a little bit more sophisticated, the boss might not like it, so I gave her a simpler one. So, she turns it at work. Of course, people ask questions, some people have negative imprints from the past and don’t like it, but most people like it. One boy came by and liked it so much. Then, the boy wanted a prayer wheel. The boy must have very strong karma with Tibetan Buddhism. She has benefited so many sentient beings there, liberating them from the lower realms, just by their seeing the prayer wheel. Just by seeing the mani prayer wheel, they are purified of the five uninterrupted negative karmas. These are negative karmas that after having been committed, when you die you immediately are reborn in the hot hell, the lowest hell with the heaviest suffering, the duration of which is one intermediate eon. So, those negative karmas that anybody has collected are purified, besides the ten non-virtues. Anyone who sees the prayer wheel is purified of these negative karmas, is liberated from the lower realms, and the seed for enlightenment is planted.

Much love and prayer, please enjoy your life with Dharma, especially bodhicitta...