Lamrim, Preliminaries and Chenrezig Mantra

My most dear, most kind, precious wish-fulfilling one,
With compassion for the sentient beings, you can’t stand their suffering, so you want to free them from the oceans of samsaric suffering as quickly as possible and bring them to enlightenment. Therefore, you need to achieve enlightenment the quickest way, so you need to practice the deity with which you are karmically connected.

It was hard to find your deity, but according to my observation it seems that Yamantaka comes out, so you can do Yamantaka practice for the time being.

First, study and practice lamrim as much as possible and when the opportunity comes you can take Yamantaka initiation. This deity is from the highest class of tantra. A deity is also for you to receive blessings in your mind for realizations.

The lamrim text you should study is Manjushri’s Sacred Words (Jam päl zhal lung in Tibetan), but I’m not sure if it’s available in English. You should also read Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand three times.

When you study, with an orange or pink highlighter respectfully mark the text, the things you don’t understand, like offering robes to a painting or statue of the Buddha. Or buy a notebook and write down what you don’t understand and then discuss with students who have studied the lamrim well or with a geshe.

Practice lamrim meditation, following the outline to get effortful lamrim experience, starting with guru devotion. Follow the outline four or five times like this, starting from the beginning. Then after that, do effortless meditation on guru devotion, no matter how many months or years it takes, until you get a stable realization that all the gurus are buddhas and all the buddhas are the guru. If that happens for one or two days then disappears, it is the blessing of the guru, not the actual realization.

With that [stable realization] then do another meditation on the path of the lower capable being, from perfect human rebirth up to karma. You don’t have to complete the entire list of meditations in one day; you can do them gradually. You can do this step by step, normally for many months or years. It takes time, so continue until you have the effortless realizations.

Putting effort like that is very important. This life’s happiness is not important. You have to switch. Now you think that this life’s happiness is important, not your future lives. Regarding the happiness of this life and the happiness of future lives, this life’s happiness is not important, whereas the future lives’ happiness is so important. When your mind is totally clear about this, then attachment, anger and so many problems, hundreds or thousands of problems, get stopped. The less you’re concerned about the happiness of this life and the more you’re concerned about the next life, the more your actions become Dharma. Your actions become only Dharma if you totally renounce attachment to this life.

Meditation on emptiness should be done every day, whether for one hour, half an hour, fifteen minutes or even five minutes. You can use different teachings, such as the Heart Sutra or the lamrim, the analysis of the four vital points, or you can use different quotations.

Generally, every day you can recite the mantra of the Compassion Buddha, Chenrezig, OM MANI PADME HUM, and also Medicine Buddha’s mantra for success.

By reciting OM MANI PADME HUM, the benefits are unbelievable. We can count the drops of water in the Pacific Ocean, but not the benefits of OM MANI PADME HUM, which are much more than that. Drops of rain can be counted, but not the benefits of OM MANI PADME HUM. The dust of the world can be counted, but not the benefits of OM MANI PADME HUM. Especially with bodhicitta, the benefits are more than the sky, purifying all the negative karma collected from beginningless rebirths and collecting extensive merit. With bodhicitta, the benefits are more than the sky.

The other thing is that it especially causes us to generate compassion for the sentient beings, which helps us achieve enlightenment quickly, by showing compassion to even one sentient being. This is one of the main benefits of OM MANI PADME HUM. For example, my mother has much greater compassion than me, even though she can’t read the texts. She recited fifty thousand OM MANI PADME HUM mantras every day, though later she couldn’t do that many.

Do lamrim meditation with Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga every day. You can also get the commentary I gave in Taiwan.

Also do the following practices:

Water bowls: 30,000.

Dorje Khadro fire puja: 900,000 times. Don’t worry. Sometimes you can do some in retreat for one week or fifteen days or one month. Otherwise, do a little every day if you have to work, counting some every day. It is good to finish 100,000 in one place. This doesn’t mean you have to do all 900,000 in one place. You can do them in different places, slowly, slowly. Don’t worry. Do what you can for the numberless sentient beings—the numberless hell being, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, asuras, suras and intermediate state beings—to free them from the oceans of samsaric suffering and for them to achieve enlightenment. This is in order to free everybody, not only to free yourself.

I think it’s good if you can do Vajrasattva. That is excellent if you’re planning on a three-month retreat. Usually, Tibetans do it in fifteen days or one month, but anyway Western students do it in three months, slowly, though many people finish before the three months is up.

You can also try to do nyung näs; three each month. Try to do what you can; if not now, then in the future. The more you learn, it’s good. It came out very good for you to do this, so do it if you can. If you don’t have time, that’s OK. It’s one general idea.

With much love and prayers ...