General Practice Advice from Rinpoche

 My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind emails, and I am very sorry for the many eons of delay in replying. My assistant told me you emailed a number of times, so I am sorry it took so long to reply. I hope you didn’t get angry. I am very happy to hear from you, to hear you express your good heart, and that you really want to make your life most beneficial for sentient beings.

My suggestion to you, what is most important to develop, the best way to benefit others, is to develop your heart and to develop your mind on the path to enlightenment. If you are able to complete the path to enlightenment, then you are fully qualified to liberate numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsara’s sufferings and bring them to full enlightenment. This is what sentient beings need. This is what is most beneficial for them. There is no greater success than this. This depends on your actualizing and completing the path to enlightenment.

Therefore, what I suggest is for you to meditate on the lamrim, really meditate on the lamrim. Each week focus on a different subject by following exactly the lamrim outlines, up to emptiness. Then, go back to the beginning again and do this for a few years. This means to meditate every day on the lamrim. You can do two sessions a day. This doesn’t mean you only do meditation when you are sitting down, you can also do meditation on the lamrim outside, on your way somewhere, at the beach, etc. It does not have to be only on your cushion, but you can do one or two sessions a day on your cushion. The rest of the time you can meditate on the lamrim when you are walking, driving, when you are doing your job, so all the time your mind can be in meditation. Whatever you were focusing on in the morning, you keep your mind in that the whole day. In this way, you protect your body, speech, and mind from engaging in negative karma. It is very easy to create negative karma, so, in this way, whatever you do becomes a very easy way for all your activities to become virtue. This helps make your meditation sessions more effective, so your sessions help you in your break time. It makes them more effective and helpful in order to achieve the realizations more quickly. Each week take a different lamrim meditation – follow the outline. This means you don’t just make up the meditation, you need to follow the outline as it is laid out.

Follow the outlines, starting with the perfect human rebirth for one week, then the usefulness of it for one week, and how it is difficult to find again for one week. Like this, go through the entire lamrim. That would be extremely good.

I don’t know if you have received a great initiation. If you have, then you need to do six session guru yoga. You can stop within the six session, before the guru absorbs into you, and begin the lamrim meditation. Or you can do it based on guru yoga. You can also do your lamrim meditation within a lamrim prayer, such as the Foundation of all Good Qualities, the Three Principal Aspects of the Path, Calling the Guru from Afar (Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo composed this), or the Hymns of Experience (Lama Tsongkhapa).

Each day you can recite a different lamrim prayer or, if you prefer, you can recite the same one each day (like the Foundation of All Good Qualities). Then, before the guru absorbs into you, you do your lamrim session.

No matter what lamrim outline you are up to, you still need to do one meditation on guru devotion every day, regardless of the other lamrim meditation. It could be for 25 minutes, 30 minutes, or one hour, the time is up to you. Every day, if possible, meditate on guru devotion by following the outline. When you finish the guru devotion outline, then go back again and start from the beginning until you achieve stable realizations that all the buddhas are one’s gurus, including however many gurus that you have a Dharma connection with, that you have received teachings from, received refuge vows, pratimoksha vows, bodhisattva vows, tantric vows, or taken initiations from, whoever you have a connection with, thinking of the teacher as a guru and oneself as a disciple. You feel from the bottom of your heart that all one’s gurus are all the Buddhas, one’s guru is numberless buddhas. It is a stable realization, not only for a few hours or days, but is stable.

One thing is to develop your mind so you can benefit other sentient beings. As you achieve the realizations, you are more able to benefit other sentient beings. This is why it is most important to have the realizations. This is what you need to achieve, from the perfect human rebirth up to enlightenment, the graduated path of the lower capable being, the graduated path of the middle capable being, and the graduated path of the higher capable being. You must develop your heart into these three. It is extremely important to attain renunciation, the determination to be free from samsara, bodhicitta, and right view.

Your goal is to benefit so many sentient beings by having the realization of renunciation of samsara, then you enter the path to liberation. By having the realization of bodhicitta, you enter the path to full enlightenment (this is the total cessation of all the suffering in samsara and the causes – karma and delusion). With this realization you are able to liberate numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and the causes: karma and delusion. By having the realization of emptiness, then you eliminate the very root of samsara, which is ignorance. Now you can see here that it is very urgent that you achieve the realizations, and achieve liberation and enlightenment. If you are not free from samsara, then you can’t liberate others, so what is needed is for you to achieve enlightenment quickly.

The way to achieve liberation and enlightenment quickly, so that you can liberate numberless sentient beings, is to practice highest tantra. This is extremely important, unbelievable, and most beneficial, not only for yourself but for all sentient beings.

So, to go over the main points:

1) Every day you need to study Dharma, and you can do this not only when you are sitting but when you are doing your job. You can perform your actions with your mind in renunciation of samara, with a pure motivation, non-attachment to samsara and its perfections, so that all your actions become the cause to achieve liberation from samara, from all the sufferings and the causes. If you perform all your actions with your mind in bodhicitta, then all your actions become the cause to achieve enlightenment for all sentient beings. If you perform all your actions with your mind in right view, then all your actions become an antidote to samsara and an antidote to karma, delusion, and ignorance.

2) Every day it is important that you practice one guru yoga, it can be Guru Puja (Lama Chöpa) or Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga. Do this early in the morning. You can do your lamrim meditation on the basis of the guru yoga. Also, if you want to, you can do the Guru Shakyamuni Buddha daily meditation practice that I put together, as your guru yoga practice.

3) Every day you must recite one lamrim prayer. Each day you can do a different one, or you can recite the same one each day.

4) In the morning generate a strong motivation; you can use the one His Holiness the Dalai Lama composed (“never give up…”). My assistant can send you this if you do not know it. Also, you can make different prayers to generate your morning motivation.

5) Then do prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas. This is extremely good to practice. Doing this practice is like an atom bomb to purify one’s negative karma, which is the main obstacle to attaining the realizations.

6) In the evening do Vajrasattva practice. You can do one mala of the Vajrasattva long mantra or half a mala, but you must recite at least 21 mantras. This purifies one’s negative karma. You need to do the practice with the four remedial powers. There is a big book of teachings that I gave during the Vajrasattva retreat in the USA. Also, there is a book by Lama Yeshe on Vajrasattva, and it would be very good if you were able to read these. This is so you can understand the practice more deeply. Since you asked how you can benefit others, this is extremely good to do for your own liberation and so that you can liberate all other sentient beings.

You can do the prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas in the morning and at night; it depends on your time in the morning. You can go through them once or, if you have time, three times, five times, or ten times. It would be incredible if you can do them three times in the morning and three times at night (this means prostrating to each Buddha and reciting the name three times, so it comes to 100). Doing prostrations by reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names is extremely good to do, even once, so if you can do it more it is even better. You need to read a little how to do prostrations well, how to think and visualize, etc.

As well as doing daily meditation on the lamrim, you must first read a book on the lamrim. You must study this first, such as Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. Read it from the beginning to the end. I don’t mean to read fast, you read it slowly by thinking of the meaning. Anything that you don’t understand or that you have questions about, you write that down and then discuss your questions with an older student or geshe.

7) The other thing that is very beneficial for all sentient beings is nyung nä retreats. This is an unbelievably powerful practice to develop compassion and bodhicitta, so that you can achieve enlightenment quickly. If you can, do 500 nyung näs throughout your life. This doesn’t mean all at one time, you can spread them out over your whole life. This is to bring all sentient beings to enlightenment.

There is a Brazilian nun who has now done 200 nyung näs and is continuing to do another 100. This practice is unbelievable; it is the best practice to purify, collect extensive merits, and particularly to develop compassion. If you develop compassion, that is the root of enlightenment, and you have no regrets now or in the future. If you can do 500 in your life, you can do some on the Buddha days, as the merit is multiplied then. Many centers do three in a row. So, like this, continue throughout your life. Do some each year and later you can do many together.

I am posting you some photos and cards. Also attached is some information on these practices; it is a lot, but it can help you. You can print it out and slowly go through it, so you learn more about the different practices.

Please practice as much as you can. Life is not long, the nature of this life is impermanent, and death can happen at any time. This is the foundation of the Buddha’s teachings, and this was the last advice Buddha gave before showing the aspect of passing away.

What makes your life most meaningful is meditation on the lamrim, then to live your life with a bodhicitta motivation. This is the best.

With much love and prayers... 

My giving practices to people, instructions, is so important. This way, whatever practice or activity they do directs their life towards benefiting sentient beings: to cause them all happiness, temporary happiness, liberation from samsara, and enlightenment. So, people don't waste their most precious human life, which they achieve just about once. This opportunity is just about once.

I thought to mention this. In order for oneself and others to have a healthy life - I don’t mean healthy in the sense of diet and exercise, I am talking about a healthy life in the sense of one’s mind and attitude, the actions of one’s body, speech, and mind being positive, healthy, virtuous, and pure—the main cause for this is to abstain as much as possible from negative actions, which result in suffering. This means actions performed with a negative mind, with ignorance, anger, attachment, and the self-cherishing thought. One way to do this is to abstain from the ten nonvirtuous actions, which are killing, stealing, telling lies, and so forth. In Christianity there are also the ten commandments.

If you harm others, there are consequences – immediate consequences and also long-term consequences—that you experience for many hundreds and thousands of lifetimes. These are the result of karma. The immediate consequence of harming others is that others are angry with you and upset with you. They find out your mistakes, you get in trouble, you are killed by others, etc. In order not to be killed by others, to have a long life and be healthy, then it is important that you do not create the cause to experience this karma.

It is important to abstain from harming other living beings, including animals, any being that has a mind and feels suffering and happiness. This is different from plants, which do not have a mind. Happiness and suffering are dependent on causes and conditions, having the right causes and conditions. For example, there are specific causes and conditions needed for a plant to grow (stem, trees, branches, leaves, flowers, and fruit) and then also to die. Living beings have suffering and all the causes of sufferings—the delusions, meaning ignorance, anger, and attachment, and the actions arising from these delusions. These actions plant more seeds, causing more delusions to arise, and in this way, the karma doesn’t end.

By harming others out of ignorance, anger, and attachment, you cause suffering. Actions created from the disturbing obscuring negative thoughts—including the root, ignorance – are what cause us to die and be reborn and experience all the sufferings again and again.

So, this is the fundamental solution: Don’t harm others, and then you will not receive harm from others—even if a child shoots you, or an unknown person shoots you, or an animal attacks you, or mosquitoes bite you, or an ant bites you, or even the tiniest insect harms you. This includes all the problems in the world, from suicide up to war. All your suffering and happiness is due to either a lack of education of your mind or a correct education of your mind.

Here, what I am suggesting is at least to avoid the ten nonvirtues, at least as much as possible.

With much love and prayers...

My very dear Charles,
Thank you very much for your kind email, and I am sorry for the long delay in replying.

Regarding your practice, in the morning start with generating the correct motivation, you can use different motivations that I have put together, then begin the day by doing prostrations and reciting the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas. This doesn’t mean you only visualize the 35 Buddhas, you can visualize that you are prostrating to numberless Buddhas. Do it as many times as you can. If you recite fast, then that way you get to recite the Buddhas’ names three to four times for each prostration, so this has incredible benefits. This is more important than reciting slowly. In this case, it has incredible benefit to recite fast. In this way, so much negative karma gets purified so quickly.

Then, in the evening it is very important to do Vajrasattva practice, with the four opponent powers.

Then, on the basis of doing a guru yoga , which can be either long six-session guru yoga, Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga, or Guru Puja, practice lamrim meditations.

If you are doing either six-session guru yoga or Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga, then you need to include the recitation of a lamrim prayer, such as the Foundation of all Good Qualities, Calling the Guru from Afar, etc. As you recite, meditate on the meaning, and in this way receive blessings from the guru.

When you meditate on the lamrim, such as guru devotion, seeing all the buddhas as one’s guru and all one’s gurus as all the buddhas, it is important to use reasonings, by using quotes, etc. Do guru yoga practice and meditate on guru devotion every day. Then, whatever lamrim prayer you recite, do it mindfully. In this way, each day you are making your life highly meaningful, planting the seeds of the path to enlightenment, and each day brings you closer to achieving all the realizations, to achieving enlightenment, and closer to liberating all sentient beings from the oceans of samsara’s suffering and bringing them to enlightenment. So, every day that you recite a lamrim prayer makes your life so meaningful.

The other thing is to recite the gradual tantric stages of your deity. This is usually the prayer at the end of the long sadhana, which goes through the stages of the path of the deity. Reciting this each day leaves incredible imprints of the generation and completion stage, the whole path to enlightenment.

It would be very good for you to read the Lamrim Chenmo from beginning to end, not just like reading a book, but relating it to your own life. If it brings up questions you can write them down and discuss them with other students from time to time. Read it thoughtfully so that it actually becomes a meditation. Then read Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand in the same way, as a meditation.

It is important to start this right away. After you have finished these books, then you can either start again, or you can then read The Essential Nectar. Use this one as a daily meditation practice, reading a few pages each day, slowly, meditating on the meaning, thinking how it relates to your life. You could also use The Essential Nectar even now, while you are reading the other two books. The point is to read a little lamrim every single day, think about what you read, and use it in your life. This way, slowly, you come to know the lamrim outlines by heart. It is important to do one meditation every day on guru devotion and then, on top of that, one other lamrim subject (you can base that on where you are up to in the books), such as perfect human rebirth. The point is to have realizations, so continue to do the meditations until you achieve stable realizations. If you can, do lamrim meditation every day for 10 or 15 minutes – longer is better.

The other meditation that is important to do every day is to do some direct meditation on emptiness. You can use the Heart Sutra or different teachings, using quotations, different reasonings, and logic, and use those to meditate on emptiness.

It is also very important, depending on who your deity is, which initiation you have received, to do that sadhana – the long or medium version. For other initiations you have received, you can just do the short sadhana or the essence. Then, do whatever other commitments you have.

Regarding your practices, I checked, and this is what came out most beneficial for your quickest enlightenment. I am listing them here and also I have incorporated them into the attached document that has more information:

• 200,000 refuge
• 50,000 Vajrasattva (you should also do this each evening)
• 200,000 prostrations by reciting the 35 Buddhas’ names
• 100,000 Dorje Khadro fire burning practice
• 10,000 water bowls
• 30, 000 tsa-tsas of: Buddha, Padmasambhava, Vajrapani (divide the number between these)
• 100,000 tonglen – This is your bodhicitta practice. With meditation, recite the words, and mainly meditate on the meaning. You can use the verse from Lama Chöpa on bodhicitta (that is recited three times in the lamrim prayer) or you can use the Nagarjuna verse: “Whatever suffering sentient beings have, may it ripen on me….” etc.

Tonglen will be an unbelievable preliminary practice. This is the most powerful purification and way to collect extensive merit, develop one’s heart in bodhicitta, and bring you and all sentient beings closer to enlightenment by actualizing tonglen.

Please read the Sanghata Sutra a little each day, even just a line or two, more of course is better, but keep this going. Also, try to read a little of the Golden Light Sutra each day. This will take care of you completely, forever, bringing all good wishes for yourself and bringing you to complete enlightenment for yourself and all sentient beings.

Regarding your deity, whichever you feel you have the closest connection to, then do that deity’s practice. If you feel you don’t have your yidam, then let me know, and I can check which deity you have the strongest connection with. But you already may know this.

The most important thing in your life, what makes your life most meaningful, is to have a bodhicitta motivation in everything you do, whether it is working, talking, on the beach, etc. Whatever activity you do, do it with a bodhicitta motivation. In this way, whatever you do brings you closer to enlightenment.

Lamrim meditation doesn’t only mean it has to be done when you are sitting, you can do it any time; you can make every moment a meditation on the lamrim – remembering guru devotion, bodhicitta, renunciation, emptiness, etc. Whatever section you are up to in the lamrim, use that throughout the day. Meditation when sitting is just one aspect, it is not the whole thing. It is important to start the day by setting one’s motivation carefully so all activities are based on that.

With much love and prayers...

My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter and sorry for the many eons of delay in replying.

Regarding your work situation, whether you should continue working for your friend, for me to check this I need a few other options to check against, in order to see what is more beneficial. Without a choice, I don’t have that knowledge to see. Generally, it seems it is difficult. This is what comes out in my observation:

1. Recite the long Medicine Buddha mantra 2,000 times.

2. Do the most elaborate Medicine Buddha puja five times. This can be done at Tsawa Khangtsen (Lama Yeshe’s khangtsen). It has to be the elaborate Medicine Buddha puja, not the normal one. If there are others working at the same business, then they can share the costs with you for this. This comes out as the best practice to do.

Regarding your practice question, you should do your practice on the basis of guru yoga. If you can do guru puja, then that equals one recitation of six-session guru yoga. It is an extensive way of doing six-session guru yoga.

Do it with meditation on guru devotion; this should be the foundation of your practice. Then, within the guru puja there is the seven-limb prayer, etc. Within this practice, do meditation on guru devotion until it is stable. It should be a stable realization that lasts a long time, where one sees all the buddhas as one’s guru and each of one’s gurus as  all the buddhas, having definite understanding from the bottom of one’s heart, unchangeable and stable.

Then, continue each day with one meditation on guru devotion, then include another lamrim topic. Start from the beginning of the lamrim, take one subject each day, and elaborate on this and do meditation on it. The point is to have realizations. So, for instance, start with renunciation of samsara, in order to renounce future lives. Then, the next day, practice the perfect human rebirth, as well as its benefits and usefulness, then death and impermanence, bodhicitta, etc.

Another meditation you should do each day is on emptiness, using different techniques, different prayers, such as reciting the Heart Sutra, etc. The main thing is to meditate on it. You have to put some effort in, in order to achieve the realizations and to have stable realizations. Doing this meditation helps direct realizations to come quickly and for you to have less obstacles.

Then, at the part with the mandala offering in the Guru Puja, offer a mandala and make strong requests for the three great purposes. Also, to create merit, you can make a few mandala offerings.

Then, at the part with prostrations, you can stop and do prostrations, reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names. Or you can start in the morning by making prostrations as well.

In the evening, do Vajrasattva practice, with meditation.

Also, within the Guru Puja, you can do Samayavajra practice.

If some days you are unable to do guru puja, then you can do Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga, but add in the essential bits I have mentioned (meditation on lamrim, mandala offerings, prostrations, etc.).

Also, you can add the essential parts I have mentioned and incorporate them into one long version of six-session guru yoga.

If you do six-session or Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga, then you need to include a lamrim prayer, such as the Foundation of All Good Qualities, etc.

Then, the rest of your life, until death, as you know, what makes life most meaningful, what turns iron into gold, is, in every moment, to do everything with bodhicitta, to do everything, as much as possible, with the motivation of benefiting others. This means your work, eating, sleeping, walking, etc.

You can do everything using different lamrim topics, such as focusing on guru devotion, especially the guru’s kindness, then another day you can do everything focusing on renunciation, relating more to renunciation of samsara, then the next day with emptiness. This is how you bring lamrim into your life. Remember whatever topic you are focusing on that day while doing your job, talking, eating, etc.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

P.S. Please give my love to your whole family. It is very good to guide your daughter with Dharma. Recently, there has been a lot of work done on Universal Education. There are the sixteen human dharmas. These help children to become good human beings by developing the practices of tolerance, contentment, rejoicing, forgiveness, forgiveness when someone else apologizes, and also requesting forgiveness if you have hurt someone. So, there are sixteen dharmas, and it would be very good if your daughter could follow these points. Also, she can help others and educate other children to practice like this. This is what she can do to bring peace for the world. This is also what you can do to help bring peace for the world, by guiding your daughter in this way.

I hope you can enjoy this card, find peace in your mind, especially when your mind gets disturbed or unhappy. By looking at this view, and concentrating, all superstitions go away, and the mind is clear, which is the nature of the mind, because the mind is not one with suffering or delusion. That’s why the mind can be totally free, liberated, enlightened, with everlasting bliss and peace, forever, and can also bring everyone who is suffering into that state.