My very dear Michael,
Thank you very much for your letter. I am happy that you are part of __ center. There are some obstacles to your life in the next two years, so you should take a long-life initiation, and liberate 4,000 animals for your long life.

These animals are going to be killed, so by liberating them it causes our long life. Normally I tell people that even though it is for our long life, the main motivation is to free the animals from the heavy suffering of being killed. Also, dedicate for His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s long life, because he is the leader of peace in this world. He preserves the complete Buddhadharma in this world, and from that, sentient beings receive happiness up to enlightenment. He is the sublime guide of sentient beings, so dedicate for all his holy wishes to succeed, as well as for the holy wishes of all the holy beings to benefit others.

Next, dedicate for the Sangha who preserve the Dharma for sentient beings and for them to complete their listening, contemplation and meditation on the path. Dedicate for the teachings to last a long time and for all the benefactors who support the Sangha to have long lives. After that, dedicate for anybody who chants OM MANI PADME HUM, and who lives in morality, which results in good rebirth next life—not only Buddhists, but those who are living in pure morality. Dedicate for anybody who does good things for others.

With every animal or insect you liberate, dedicate extensively like this, so it helps everybody.

Usually where there is a Chinese town, it is very easy to get worms, insects and crickets in plastic bags. You can get many of those cheaply. Also, you can get worms from the shops where people buy them to catch fish. The worms suffer unbelievably because the fishing hook goes through their bodies. Normally, worms were fishermen before, who are then reborn as worms. That has to be the case. Also, many of the fish that are caught could have been fishermen before. Even if due to their good karma they are reborn as human beings, because of their past karma they are reborn as fishermen.

Also for next year, have the la-küg tse-küg puja [ Tib: བླ་ཀུག་ཚེ་ཀུག་; Hooking the life and life potential puja] done. Ask either a geshe from Kopan monastery or Geshe Gelek to do it.

Your preliminary practices:

• Do tonglen practice 50,000 times

This is a most unimaginable practice. Each time we take the suffering and its causes, we purify negative karma from beginningless rebirth. Generate strong loving kindness and compassion, and give away the body, all the wealth and the people surrounding us, and the merit of the past, present and future, and the resultant happiness up to enlightenment—give all this away from the heart.

Especially this time, we collect numberless merit, and the causes to achieve enlightenment, liberation and future life happiness. There is no question about success for this life, even without clinging to that, without thinking about it. We create numberless causes of happiness—not one time, but numberless times, even if we do tonglen just once. This is the most unimaginable, best practice. Each time we do this, we are closer to enlightenment. This means we are closer to enlightenment for all sentient beings, so it is most worthwhile.

• 600,000 Vajrasattva mantras

Don’t worry, the main thing is to just do it. If you are afraid of the number, then it doesn’t ever happen—not even 100,000, 100 or even one mantra. This is something we should enjoy; it’s something that is most exciting and brings the most happiness. When we purify negative karma from beginningless rebirth, then all the realizations up to enlightenment come. Then we can liberate numberless sentient beings from each realm and bring them to enlightenment.

You don’t have to be frightened. Just do a little bit each day and count the mantras. If you have more time, do more meditation sessions as if you are in retreat. If you have no time, do 100 or less mantras each day when you are busy.

• 2,000 tsa-tsas of Mitukpa

Make each tsa-tsa to purify the negative karma of sentient beings in each realm and to achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible.

• 300,000 Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga

Count the four-line migtsema prayer, not the whole practice.

• 2,000 Dorje Khadro burning offering
• 2,000 mandala offerings
• Read the Golden Light Sutra every day

Even if you are busy, read a few lines. That brings you to enlightenment, and your life will only go up, not down. It will benefit the world, and bring healing to the city where you live. It makes you unbelievably fortunate. Your wishes also get fulfilled.

You should meditate on:

• three months on the general graduated path of the lower capable being
• six months on the general graduated path of the middle capable being
• four months on the graduated path of the higher capable being
• eight months on emptiness

While you are doing this, you should also do one meditation on guru devotion every day by following the outlines in Liberation of the Palm of Your Hand. Once you have read the commentary, the other text for daily meditation is The Essential Nectar. There is no particular outline in this text and it is neither very short nor long, but very inspiring. When you have time meditate for a little longer, but if there is no time do a shorter session; whatever you feel is better.

Meditate on guru devotion as much as possible every day by following the outlines until you see the guru is all buddhas, discovering this from the bottom of your heart. This should be something that is very stable—that goes on for weeks, months and years, not just for a few hours or days. For example, meditate for one week each on the eight benefits of correctly devoting [to the guru] and the eight shortcomings of not correctly devoting. Then there are the four major outlines that prove to your mind that guru is Buddha. Do this for one month, then spend two weeks on the kindness of the guru. Repeat this process until you get realizations.

After completing this process over this number of months, whichever realization you do not have, meditate on that. You still need to meditate a little bit on the ones that you have realizations for, in order to stabilize them. For example, if you don’t have realizations from perfect human rebirth up to karma, meditate again on the perfect human rebirth, no matter how many weeks or months it may take. Do the same for every topic.

Generally if you do this seriously, at the same time accumulating merit, doing purification and making single-pointed request to the guru, of course change and realizations will come. If you are lazy, or if you delay or don’t do it sincerely, then it doesn’t happen.

Without renunciation, there is no bodhicitta. We need to have the realizations step-by-step, but we should do some meditation on emptiness every day. This way, the idea is to have the realization of guru devotion, renunciation, bodhicitta and right view. If not three, then two; if not two, then at least one realization. The lowest thing is, even if we do not have any realization, it brings us closer to realization. That makes it possible to achieve realization in future lives.

Your deity for quickest enlightenment is Vajrayogini. You need a great initiation as a preliminary for taking Vajrayogini initiation, because it has the body mandala and is very secret. Heruka is the best preliminary or Yamantaka or any great initiation of Highest Yoga Tantra.

By practicing Vajrayogini, even just chanting the mantra every day, we can be reborn in the pure land of Vajrayogini. If that happens, we can be enlightened there because there is tantra there. There is no opportunity to practice tantra in most pure lands, even in Amitabha’s pure land. Many lamas say the bodhisattvas in these pure lands pray to be born here in our world, because there is no tantra there. Therefore this body of ours is very precious.

With much love and prayers...