Arya Sanghata Sutra, Heruka and Lamrim Practice
A student wrote to Rinpoche asking what practices they should do. Rinpoche advised the student to read the Arya Sanghata Sutra every day, to practice lamrim and to receive Heruka initiation.
My most dear, most precious, most kind, most wish fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. Maybe this could be the last letter, because you said you could die at any time. It’s very true, but also you could be enlightened at any time.
It depends on whether you practice bodhicitta in daily life, which means you dedicate your life to the sentient beings—the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, suras and asuras beings. That means, for example, toward animals—every ant, mosquito, red worm; when there is rain on the ground there are short ones and long ones; even those animals in the stomach which are curled up and then very long when they are stretched out; even the tiniest insects, even the tiniest sentient beings in the water, all that.
Your life is given to sentient beings, especially when you have bodhisattva vows. When bodhisattva vows are taken it is like that. You live life for them, to not give harm and to only cause happiness. Happiness can be temporal and ultimate, so the main aim is ultimate happiness, enlightenment.
I am very happy to hear from you. How are you? How is your family? Now I will give you your practice, after checking through the divination.
Your main deity is Heruka. There are three kinds of Heruka:
- Luipa Heruka, with external mandala
- Five-deity Heruka
- Heruka body mandala.
From these three aspects of Heruka you can choose your main deity, based on whichever one you feel the strongest connection with. If you choose Heruka body mandala, first you need an initiation of five-deity Heruka, then you can receive Heruka body mandala initiation. Then you can do retreat, the enabling action retreat, then there is a three-year retreat.
I don’t know if you have already received the Heruka five-deity initiation or not, but for five-deity Heruka there is a long and short sadhana. Heruka body mandala also has a long and short sadhana. The three purifications (one practice of Heruka) are done after receiving the initiation, and after receiving the commentary then you can do the long or short sadhana.
Please see my advice for how long to meditate on each section of the lamrim.
Also read the Arya Sanghata Sutra continuously. It’s not necessary to finish it each day but read according to your time, so read it and then start again. This means to read some each day and, in this way, [you are collecting] merit.
By reading the Arya Sanghata Sutra you will understand the incredible merit of this practice. It’s unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable merit. When you find out the merit of reading and writing it, you might fall down, you might faint, but when you wake up you will be in the pure land, not in New Zealand, but in the pure land, with ice cream and milkshakes, and better than New Zealand, better pizza, better beaches.
As you know, when you are reading this sutra and also when reading the lamrim, it is like reading the essence of all the Buddhadharma, the essence of the five great texts (Abhisamayalamkara, Vinaya, Madhyamaka, Abhidharmakosha and Pramanavarttika, logic) and the foundation of tantra.
Even if you have studied Buddhadharma very extensively, if you practice lamrim, that practice is the essence of Buddhadharma. Otherwise, it is like putting lots of news into the computer, but it doesn’t get used to subdue the mind or to benefit the mind. It isn’t used to bring the mind into a good shape, to develop realizations of the path to enlightenment.
You are most welcome to enlightenment, to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsara’s sufferings, the cessation of obscurations and completion of realizations.
Thank you very much.