Cutting Down Practice Time
A student who was doing many hours of practice wrote to Rinpoche about all his practices and requested Rinpoche's advice on which practices were most important.
My very dear Lawrence,
I am very, very sorry for the many eons of delay in replying to your sincere letter. Thank you very much for your kind letter. I have cut down some of your mantras and practices (see the attached letter).
You must be a very sincere person, doing so many prayers so carefully. Now, maybe you don’t have as much energy for so many prayers because you have been doing them for such a long time and maybe you have lost some of the energy to do them.
Maybe you need more lamrim meditation. Perhaps you are doing many prayers and mantras that were not given as a commitment by a lama. If so, you can stop any of those for which you do not have a commitment. Some of your practices are specifically for success in a project or job, or whatever you wish, so you don’t need to do those all the time—just do them when you particularly need success. If you do more meditation, you can cut down on those practices that were not your guru’s advice, unless it’s something you need for success of your projects.
The most important thing is to take time to meditate on the lamrim, so, please try to do that. If you can, focus for two months on guru devotion, so this means spending a little time each day mainly focusing on guru devotion. Please follow the outline in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. In this way, go through the whole lamrim and then start again from the beginning, over and over, until you attain realizations. For guru devotion, this means seeing one guru as all the buddhas and one buddha as all your gurus. When you have a stable realization, it is not just for one hour, or one day and then it disappears. Until you have realizations you have to keep going through the lamrim. Even when you have realizations, you still need to meditate on guru devotion a little each day, but not as much as before, to keep the realization stable.
Follow the outline in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, from the perfect human rebirth up to karma, for eight months. Try to attain any or all of the realizations by meditating step-by-step, and going back again and again, up to karma, following the outline and also reading the commentaries, such as the Lamrim Chenmo. Also do the following:
- Middle path: seven months
- Bodhicitta: eight months
- Emptiness: five months
This means for that number of months you follow the outline on that subject.
When you are focusing on emptiness use different prayers, such as the Heart Sutra, and go back again and again. After you attain a realization, then move on to the next outline.
Practicing lamrim meditation doesn’t mean just sitting down on your seat, it can be when you are outside walking around. It doesn’t have to be just when you are sitting in your room.
Try to attain some realizations. This is the best, most fulfilling, most meaningful thing. After you have bodhicitta realizations, then you can try the two stages of tantra. Whatever lamrim realization you have, then move on to the next one. If you don’t have any realizations, then keep going back, circling through. Please try practicing in this way.
With much love and prayers...