My very dear Jim,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. Sorry for the long delay in replying.

It is best if you can meditate daily practicing Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga, as well as reciting one lamrim prayer each day.

Lamrim is what you should focus on your whole life, even while you are working. This is what you should keep in your mind. It is the most meaningful, profound practice, especially keeping the mind in bodhicitta, performing each action with your mind in bodhicitta. This should be your practice; this is what you should try to accomplish in this life, it is very important.

The main purpose of having a human life is to benefit sentient beings, to free others from suffering, to eliminate the causes of suffering – karma and delusion, and to bring all beings to full enlightenment, the peerless happiness. To do this you have to actualize the path first.

My advice to you is to please study the book Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand by reading a little every day, a page, or more or less, to study and meditate on each part that you read, and to read the whole book from beginning to end.

Whatever parts you do not understand, or if you have any questions, then write them down in a note book, and then when you meet a more experienced student or a geshe, someone who knows the lamrim quite well, you can ask those questions.

So, train the mind in lamrim, meditate on the lamrim every day, whatever you can do, even while you are working. First, train the mind in the graduated path common to the lower capable being, then in the graduated path common to the middle capable being, then in the graduated path common to the higher capable being: bodhicitta, and then in emptiness. Keep meditating like this until you have stable realizations.

Later, you can take tantric initiations and practice the two stages of tantra.

In this way use every second of your life to train in the lamrim.

With much love and prayers...