The Path to Enlightenment

Your preliminary practices are:

- Refuge: 500,000
- Generating the four immeasurable thoughts: 100,000
- Prostrations by reciting the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas: 50,000, and
- Mandala offerings: 200,000. That means you can do the long one once, twice or three times, then do the short one [Tib: Sa zhi pö kyi ... ] and count those.  You can also do the nine-line prayer to Lama Tsongkhapa [Tib: migtsema] at the end of each one, as we do in Jorchö. [Tib: Ngö drub kün jung thub wang dor je chang …. ]

All those things you are practicing are very good, but the one thing left is lamrim. You can do the lamrim prayer at the end of Lama Chöpa.

Your lamrim text is not yet translated, however, it’s called the Red Lamrim and maybe the author is Sangye Yeshe. That lamrim text is the basis for Pabongka Rinpoche’s Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. That’s the main lamrim that you should study from beginning to end.

Study this lamrim text twice from beginning to end, but that doesn’t mean you can’t read other lamrims and commentaries. You can also read them but the main lamrim for you to read is the Red Lamrim.

The things you don’t understand, mark with orange color as an offering, like painting a buddha statue or thangka, or like offering color or robes to holy objects. In other words, mark the text in a respectful way. Don’t mark the texts with black ink. Marking texts in a disrespectful way creates negative karma and is a cause to be born in the lower realms. One Western professor of Buddhism, who is one of the professors who is very good in Buddhism, said that in the past he marked many manuscripts with black color right over the letters and created the cause to be born in the lower realms many times.

Also, you can write down all the questions you have—everything you don’t know—in a book and then discuss these afterwards with the geshes or Western students who have done very good study in the Basic and Masters Programs. If there is someone who has studied well, then they can help you.

Do effortful meditation by following the lamrim outline five times and then do effortless meditation.

The essence is that this life is not long but short. This perfect human rebirth is most precious. In general, a human rebirth is precious and specifically this perfect human rebirth is most precious and doesn’t last long, because death can happen at any moment. This perfect human rebirth that we have received with eight freedoms and ten richnesses is a most impossible thing to happen.

We have met with the Mahayana teachings, which is the most difficult thing to happen, and on top of that we have met perfectly qualified gurus, which is almost impossible to happen. This time we can achieve complete enlightenment in one brief lifetime of this degenerate time. Life is very short and death can happen at any time. That’s what we should have in the heart all the time.

Thank you very much. I am the same as an ant crawling around you. Anyway, your practice of guru devotion is your responsibility. Thank you very much.

Also do nyung näs every year as much as you can. That’s the quick way. Doing one nyung nä well prevents rebirth in the lower realms and you are able to go to a pure land. So doing nyung nä as much as you can each year is very good.

Sometimes recite Chanting the Names of Manjushri. Reciting that from time to time is good. Thank you.

• Refuge recitations: 150,000
• Prostrations by reciting the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas: 50,000
• Mandala offerings: 100,000
• Vajrasattva mantras: 100,000
• Water bowl offerings: 50,000

If you are able to come to Nepal, there are students who come to the Kopan nunnery from Singapore and so on. They do one thousand water bowl offerings a day, so you can join them and then offer together as a group. Even if many people are doing the water bowl offerings, you can still offer them together. You can each count the total number of the bowls offered and in this way complete them faster. Also, someone can guide the practice.

Group water bowl retreats are also arranged in the West and at different centers, similar to what Kopan nunnery does, and in this way it gets them done. Otherwise you can do it alone. This may purify more because it is harder and it takes longer, therefore it purifies so many obscurations and collects so much merit. When it is very easy because it’s done with many people, maybe there’s not as much purification.

One of the benefits of offering water is that the mind becomes soft and actualizes bodhicitta—the wetness of bodhicitta—thus we generate loving kindness, compassion and bodhicitta. It is mainly for that.

• Arya Sanghata Sutra recitations: Read the Arya Sanghata Sutra each week for your whole life. This is to collect the most unbelievable, unbelievable merits, so that is to help everything.

To gain effortful lamrim experience:

What makes your life most meaningful is the lamrim. I suggest the main text for you to use is Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. If you haven’t studied this text already, then study it from beginning to end, reading through it four times. That itself is lamrim meditation if you read it slowly and relate it to your own life.

As you read, if there’s anything you don’t understand you can mark the text—not with black ink, but with orange or yellow color. Mark it respectfully, thinking this is the holy Dharma, which has two aspects—one aspect is the realizations and one aspect is the text, the letters, which explain the realizations.

Holy Dharma has two realizations, in case of realizing the absolute Dharma—the cessation of all the obscurations, the sufferings, and the true path to that, which leads to the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness. These two are ultimate Dharma.

When you mark the text, you have to think that you are offering color with respect, like offering to a statue. Otherwise if you are just marking the text with a black line on top of the letter, it creates the negative karma to be born in hell, such as the second hell, called the black line hell. Therefore, it’s important when you mark the text not to do it in a disrespectful manner.

The other thing is that you can buy a notebook and write nicely in that anything you don’t understand. Then you can meet with a geshe or elder student who has studied the lamrim well and you can ask the questions. In this way, you can learn. Or you can telephone and get the answers from someone who has studied the lamrim very well.

Study Liberation in the Palm of your Hand four times and after that go through the lamrim outline using Liberation as a basis. Cycle through the lamrim outline completely three times.

After that, try to achieve the realization of correctly following the virtuous friend with thought and action, on the basis of the outline in the lamrim. Every day, more or less meditate on that. The time depends on yourself. Do this until you achieve the effortless realization of correctly following the virtuous friend.

After that, do the meditation on the graduated path of the lower capable being, up to karma. Particularly [focus] on the perfect human rebirth. Try to get the realization that your perfect human body is much more precious than skies filled with wish-granting jewels, so you realize the importance.

Even if we have skies filled with wish-granting jewels, that alone can’t help us to be free from the lower realms. That alone can’t help us to be free from samsara, free from lower nirvana, and we can’t achieve buddhahood from wish-granting jewels. With this perfect human body, even if we don’t have a tiny piece of a wish-granting jewel, we can achieve all of this up to enlightenment.

Milarepa achieved full enlightenment in this brief lifetime of degenerate times, even though he was a lay person and didn’t become a monk. This was even after he killed about thirty-seven people through black magic. He also killed many more animals that were under the house at the same time. This happened because he felt very sad and it was the advice of his mother because they were badly treated by their uncle and aunt. After he killed all those people he felt bad and went to see his guru Marpa because the lama who taught him black magic suggested he go to see Marpa.

Marpa didn’t give him any teachings for years, he just let Milarepa build a nine-storey tower three times, by himself alone. After Milarepa built the first tower, he had to tear it down and  carry all the stones back to where he found them, so his backside became bluish and hard. Also his guru Marpa, who was a buddha, always scolded him and maybe even beat him. Even when Milarepa came with other disciples to attend teachings from Marpa, when Marpa saw him, he scolded him and kicked him out. However, from Milarepa’s side, he never arose heresy or anger, he was always devotional and followed exactly what was advised by his guru Marpa.

Finally, Marpa did give Milarepa initiations and teachings and then he went to the different mountains where he was advised to meditate by Marpa. He did exactly what was advised and he achieved buddhahood—the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations—in one brief lifetime of degenerate time. This is just a brief example of how Milarepa achieved enlightenment in a brief lifetime of degenerate time. There are many others [who also achieved enlightenment in one lifetime.] This is what you should understand; this is the essence of how to achieve enlightenment quickest in this brief lifetime of degenerate time.

Besides the perfect human rebirth, its usefulness, meditate on this longer if you can, then if you achieve realizations you can proceed to the next subject, so like that continue through the lamrim.

When you have realizations of the path of the lower capable being, you can then train the mind mainly in the path of the middle capable being. After that realization then train in bodhicitta. There are two techniques: the seven-point Mahayana cause and effect, and equalizing and exchanging oneself and others. You can do both, but whichever technique is more effective you can do that more often until you achieve effortful realization.

Then train the mind in emptiness. You should do some meditation on emptiness every day, for ten or fifteen minutes or whatever time you have. This is very important, so please study the teachings on emptiness, besides lamrim, philosophy, also take teachings, learn and read and try to understand the teachings. This is to leave imprints as much as possible on the mind.

If we have enough merit then we can have realizations even in this life; if not, then in the next life. Therefore it is very important to listen to teachings as much as possible in this life and to study and read any teachings on sutra and tantra, the Buddha’s teachings. In this way it leaves imprints on the mind and even if we don’t have realizations in this life, in the next life we will become a pandit. We can expect that. What we heard in this life, through that we can have realizations quickly.

Please use the outline of Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand or Essential Nectar for your daily meditation. This should be your pocket guide book on the lamrim. In that way, it is so simple. After becoming familiar with the lamrim then you need your personal deity of Highest Yoga Tantra, and in this way, you are practicing to achieve enlightenment in the quickest way.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
In regard to practice, you should first do the morning motivation, The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment) and also Guru Yoga practice.

The main lamrim commentary for you is Essence of Refined Gold, which you should read ten times. You should study the text and write down in a notebook or mark in the text anything that you don’t understand and ask questions to a geshe or to older students who have studied well.

Read the text ten times but read it mindfully, as an analytical meditation, until the mind is transformed, then do fixed meditation, keeping the mind in that for a while.

It’s extremely important to know the following. When a child knows that fire is hot, they won’t put their hand in the fire. If we recognize the nature of samsaric suffering we won’t follow it, although we have done that from beginningless time.

We are a servant to ignorance, a robot of samsara, following it from beginningless rebirths. We’re still in samsara and suffering, so recognize that by realizing emptiness we abandon ignorance and become free from the whole of samsara, from the three types of suffering. That’s how we can be free from the suffering of pain, from the suffering of death and old age, sickness and birth, and from the suffering of change, all the temporary samsaric pleasures. We have experienced all the pleasures—temporary samsaric pleasures—numberless times from beginningless rebirth, and because of our attitude to that we’re still in samsara, we’re still not free.

All the pleasures in the world that people have are nothing new but are old, experienced from beginningless rebirths. Compared to the devas’ very high pleasures, human beings’ billions or trillions of dollars are nothing. But compared to the devas, even the poorest human beings can have Dharma happiness, which they can continue and complete. They can be free from samsara, be liberated and become buddhas, however, samsaric happiness cannot be continued or completed.

Those two sufferings come from pervasive compounding suffering. This is very important. Buddhists need to know the sufferings of samsara, because we should realize what we need to be free from. If we can be free from pervasive compounding suffering, we can be free from samsara forever, not just temporarily. This third suffering means our five aggregates are under the control of delusion and karma, therefore the aggregates are pervaded by suffering, contaminated by the seed of delusion and karma, so suffering and delusions rise. That’s how suffering is compounded.

To realize the nature of suffering, feel that it’s like being in a fire. We can’t stand to be in a fire for even one second. We want to be out of that fire. Not just that, but hundreds, thousands of times worse than that. So it’s important, the most important meditation in our life.

Self-cherishing thought is the root of obstacles to benefit numberless sentient beings and also [it prevents us] from achieving happiness and being able to enlighten others. It’s the main obstacle. By recognizing that, give it up and develop bodhicitta, cherishing other sentient beings who are numberless. From that thought we can bring happiness to every sentient being, up to enlightenment: this life’s happiness, the happiness of future lives—not just one—and the ultimate happiness of liberation from samsara and then buddhahood, the cessation of all the mistakes of the mind and completion of all realizations. From buddhahood we can then bring that to all sentient beings.

It’s unbelievable, unbelievable. It makes life the best, most meaningful—to bring peerless happiness to all sentient beings, to bring everyone to peerless happiness by oneself. This is the best Dharma practice. If you can, put effort into this. Like churning milk to make butter, this is the essence. It’s like taking the essence of gold or jewels from the ocean sand.

Attempt to do essential daily practices. After one or two years, check and then you can do preliminary practices; there are certain meditations to do. First do effortful meditation on lamrim, then effortless meditation.

I don’t want to give all that now. Thank you very much.

Please take care of your life in this way. Bodhicitta is the best way to take care of our life, so it is most beneficial for all sentient beings, the happiest life.

Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers...

My very dear one,
Thank you for your kind letter and enthusiasm for doing the Basic Program as I originally designed it to be. There is really no more advice to give, other than to follow the Basic Program as I originally designed it.

It is so, so, so important to have the retreat and all the components I mention as part of the program, as we are trying help students actualize the path and not just be like computers storing knowledge. So of course I would like the Basic Program followed as I designed it.

Actualizing the path is most important, and we need people to do this. We need now students who can be real sources of inspiration because of good qualities they achieve through actualizing the path. So we need the retreats, the meditation and the service.

With love and prayer...

My most dear, most kind, most precious wish-fulfilling one and father,
Thank you very much from your kind message. Regarding your father’s questions: yes, he can do the mantras anywhere he wants to. That is completely fine. Please find attached a morning meditation for __ and for your father, and also a link to a bodhicitta booklet, which you may already have.

I want to mention that the lamrim came from Lama Atisha, who came from India, and the Buddhadharma came from India, from the Buddha.

The whole sutra and tantra came into Tibet and was practiced there. From that, so many buddhas and bodhisattvas happened in Tibet, as well as arhats, who blessed the whole country. Tibet is unbelievably, unbelievably blessed, because so many practitioners had realizations and subdued their minds. So many people practiced—not only monks and nuns, but also lay people—in so many caves, which were full of practitioners; and in so many mountains, but now they are ruined. They really practiced and renounced their lives, and it is because of this that Buddhism has lasted a long time. Even when communist China took over Tibet and His Holiness the Dalai Lama and many high lamas had to escape, then the great monasteries were reestablished in India and Nepal, so now Buddhism has been able to spread all over the world and especially in the West.

So sutra and tantra came from India. It was translated from the Kangyur, which is the Buddha’s teachings of 100 volumes, and then the Tengyur, which is the commentaries by Asanga and many great pandits from India, from Nalanda Monastery.

There are more than 200 volumes in the Tengyur, which was translated into Tibetan and has been practiced and studied in Tibet. So you can see the Kangyur, the Buddha’s teachings, came from India, and the Tengyur, the commentaries on the Buddha’s teachings, which came from many Indian pandits, who came from India. So originally it all came from the Buddha in India, then later it was practiced by Tibetans. So many numberless buddhas, bodhisattvas and arhats came from this, then actualizing the path they wrote it down. What they wrote is similar; it is the basis of the pandits’ commentaries (Tengyur) and the Buddha’s teachings (Kangyur). If it is contradictory to those teachings, then it is wrong. This is the way to check it is pure Buddhism.

So the basis, the essence of sutra, the root of the path to enlightenment, is guru devotion, renunciation, bodhicitta and emptiness. Then there is the tantric path (not Hindu tantra but Buddhist tantra), the generation and completion stage, the two kayas—the dharmakaya and rupakaya. So this is what is to be achieved. There are the four levels of tantra [Kriya (Action), Charya (Performance), Yoga and Maha-anuttara Yoga Tantra].

So this is basic explanation that all these teachings came all from the Indian pandits and from the Buddha.

Buddha has taught not every single teaching, but most. There were 84,000 teachings taught by the Buddha, including the Hinayana, Pali teachings, and also the Mahayana teachings. So by practicing the Pali Hinayana teachings, we can achieve the four noble truths: true suffering, the true cause of suffering, the true cessation of suffering and the true path—the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness. So we can be completely free from the oceans of samsaric suffering, the ocean of sufferings of the hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, suras, asuras and intermediate state beings.

By practicing the Mahayana teachings, which were taught by Buddha, which have sutra and tantra; by practicing the sutra path, the Paramita teachings, we can achieve the whole path, on the basis of the Hinayana. So the whole path—the five paths and ten bhumis—can be achieved. We can achieve the state of omniscient mind, the total cessation of disturbing-thought obscurations and subtle thought obscurations, and we can complete all the realizations, with nothing missing. Then we are able to liberate the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to full enlightenment, the state of omniscient mind. So all this happens by having compassion for every sentient being.

I am sorry it became long, but for your understanding, I am explaining this.

With much love and prayers...

My dear one,
Thank you for your kind letter expressing your holy wishes. The ultimate goal of life is to liberate each numberless sentient being from each realm in the ocean of samsara’s suffering. Therefore, we need to achieve enlightenment. To do so as soon as possible, my observation came out for you to practice Guhyasamaja as your main deity. Besides that, you can also take the initiations for Hayagriva and Gyalwa Gyatso, when the opportunity arises.

Regarding your first question, I have already answered it during the teaching. Lama Tsongkhapa asked Manjrushri, the embodiment of all the Buddha’s wisdom, “What is the quickest way to achieve enlightenment?” Manjrushri answered, “Purify defilements and collect extensive merit.” There are so many practices to purify defilements and collect extensive merits, such as Vajrasattva, and prostration to the Thirty-five Buddhas and the ten-direction Buddhas, Dharma, Sangha and scriptures, which are all your gurus. There are so many other practices to do with Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, and sentient beings, such as generating loving compassion. The stronger the compassion we generate for sentient beings, the quicker we achieve enlightenment. For example, look at Maitreya and Shakyamuni Buddha. Shakyamuni Buddha generated stronger compassion so he achieved enlightenment quicker, because his bodhicitta was stronger.

Tonglen practice is extremely good and we collect limitless skies of merit. When we give our merit from the past, present and future, as well as our body and material things, this results in happiness from now up to enlightenment, including all happiness in this life and future lives, and liberation from samsara. There is so much to give and when we give to each sentient being, we collect limitless skies of merit so many times. Tonglen is giving our happiness to other sentient beings and experiencing all their suffering. With this incredible practice, we can achieve enlightenment quicker. When we take on the suffering of others, we collect incredible, limitless skies of merit. This is the very heart of the Mahayana teachings; the brave heart developing bodhicitta. Strong compassion serving others is the quick way to achieve enlightenment.

The other most powerful purification is obtaining advice from the guru and doing service for the guru. This collects the most extensive merit and purification. Whenever we are able to please the virtuous friend, we purify any heavy negative karma and collect the most extensive merit. This is something to achieve, all the time, because all attainment comes from pleasing the guru. We have to know about the great obscuration of harming the holy body and holy mind, criticizing the guru, of heresy arising and giving up the guru. These are very heavy obscurations, and include breaking advice. This is something into which we have to put every single effort. Do not create these heavy obstacles and do collect extensive merit. If we become careless about this, we create obstacles and suffer endlessly in the lower realms, and we cannot achieve enlightenment.

Secondly, one-pointedly requesting the guru, is guru yoga. We see the guru as Buddha by looking at Buddha’s quotations and reasoning on this. Then, one-pointedly request the guru to grant blessings and realizations. Do this strongly every day. We receive blessings from the guru in our heart by seeing the guru as pure, with no mistakes. This is like pouring water over the seed of a fruit, which then grows and later produces a flower and fruit to enjoy, like enlightenment.

Thirdly, the actual body of the practice is meditation on mind training on the path to enlightenment. The root of the path is guru devotion, the three principles of the path, the two stages of tantra, the completion stage, then enlightenment. Until we attain the realization of bodhicitta, we must put effort into the lamrim outline on guru devotion. No matter how many months or years it takes, we must do guru devotion. Next meditate on lower capable beings. Spend six months or one year training  the mind on the lower capable being topics, by following the outlines of the perfect human rebirth up to karma. Finish the perfect human rebirth topic in two days or one week, depending on how elaborately it is done. Next, train the mind on the middle path, then bodhicitta, then emptiness. After this, go back to the topics for which we haven’t attained the realization, and train again.

Then practice tantra, with a commitment or sadhana, after achieving a stable realization of bodhicitta. After this, train in the generation and completion stages of tantra. First, practice the generation stage, then the completion stage. Train in our life like this. Another way is to train the mind in guru devotion every day until we achieve realizations. The most important is guru devotion, then the lamrim, which is the root of the path to enlightenment. If the root is not there, we cannot have realizations of the path and we cannot achieve enlightenment, bodhicitta, and great compassion for sentient beings.

After taking the samaya vows as the basis for attainment, if we cannot preserve them, then there is no attainment; so much depends on that. Even for lay people, there are pratimoksha vows, bodhisattva vows and tantric vows. After taking an initiation, there are samaya vows. Preserving these vows is even more important than our life, because without them we can’t attain enlightenment. It is like the five lay vows and abstaining from the ten non-virtues. Without the pratimoksha vows, we can’t practice the bodhisattva and tantric vows.

So, my answer to your question is including what Manjushri explained to Lama Tsongkhapa, and also what I explained as the heart practice. Please take care of your life with Dharma and bodhicitta.