Daily Practice Advice

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
This is how to pray if a family member or any person dies, also how to pray for yourself as well. It is the same prayer.

"Due to all the merits of the past, present and future collected by me, collected by numberless sentient beings and collected by numberless buddhas, may (name of the person) never ever be reborn in the lower realms. If they are already born in the lower realms, may they be free immediately from that. May they be born in the pure land where they can achieve the total cessation of obscurations, gross and subtle, and the completion of all the realizations—buddhahood, full enlightenment. At least may they receive a perfect human rebirth and meet the Mahayana teachings; may they meet a perfectly qualified guru who reveals the unmistaken path to enlightenment and by pleasing most the holy mind of the virtuous friend, may they achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible."

When you say “past, present and future” in this prayer, “past” means from beginningless rebirths, and “future” means not just in this life, but in all the future lives. You can also recite the same prayer for yourself every day, by changing the name to “I” instead of using the other person’s name.

Just praying “May that person be in peace” can mean praying for them to still remain in samsara, in the suffering realms. That’s why I wanted to explain this, because with that kind of prayer we’re only praying for temporary happiness. It’s like someone is going to be executed, to be cut in pieces, and we offer that person a party, where they’re playing music, eating turkey and so forth for five minutes, instead of freeing them forever from that punishment. Or only offering a prisoner a one-hour break to see their family, instead of freeing them from prison completely.

My explanation after the prayer is for it to only be read from time to time. This is why I wanted to teach you how to pray for others and that is also how to pray for yourself. This prayer is very short, it is nothing, but it is so important to understand and to know this. This is why I am giving this explanation and if you can, also read this explanation from time to time.

We have been suffering in samsara from beginningless rebirths. In the hell realms, for example, even one minute or one second of this suffering, if it is materialized, would be like the limitless sky. It’s the most, most unbearable suffering. The suffering of the hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, suras, asuras and intermediate state beings is like this. We have been experiencing these sufferings numberless times from beginningless rebirths and until we are free from samsara, we will experience these sufferings again without end.

Yes, within samsara there are many different levels of peace, but all these are in the nature of suffering. The peace is because of the absence of the suffering of pain, which even the animals can recognize. For example, if we carry a stick, dogs and birds know they will be beaten, so they run away. The peace they have is because they are not experiencing the suffering of pain. All samsara’s pleasures are like this. So, peace in samara means this. All the samsaric pleasures are the suffering of change.

The form realm does not have the suffering of pain. The desire realm, where we are now, has the suffering of pain, the suffering of change and pervasive compounding suffering, from which the other two sufferings arise.

The form realm doesn’t have the suffering of pain, but it has the other two sufferings—the suffering of change and pervasive compounding suffering. The form realm has four levels of firm contemplation, and the fourth level doesn’t have the suffering of change.

The formless realm has only the third type of suffering, pervasive compounding suffering. The formless realm doesn’t have body, only mind, and there are four levels—infinite sky, infinite consciousness, nothingness and tip of samsara.

The highest level of the suffering realm is the tip of samsara, and from there down to the heaviest hell suffering, the inexhaustible hell, all have the aggregates, the body and mind. All those aggregates, the evolution came from impure causes—delusion and its action, karma. All of this is covered by delusion and karma, therefore, all this is pervaded by suffering, compounding all this. The aggregates are contaminated by the seed of delusion and karma, and from the seed, delusion arises, then suffering arises again, including future lives’ suffering. This is why it is compounding.

So we need to pray not only to have peace in samsara, which has the suffering of pain, not only that, but there is higher peace, which doesn’t have even the suffering of change (which includes all samsara pleasure). Whereas with Dharma happiness we can continue and we can develop and we can complete [the path to ultimate happiness]. But samsaric happiness, samsaric peace, we have been trying to get from beginningless rebirth, and we cannot continue and develop and complete it. We try but still do not get satisfaction.

For example, after working hard all day, then we are tired, we’re exhausted, and we sleep. We enjoy that, but as we continue to sleep, at first we thought it was great, but then sleep becomes very boring the more we try to sleep. Here, the suffering of being tired and exhausted has stopped by sleeping, by lying down. We stop feeling tired, but then if we sleep too much, another suffering starts very small [slowly], so we don’t notice it. Then the longer and longer we sleep, the more and more we feel bored with sleeping. For example, sleeping for one whole day, then sleeping for two days—that feeling is called pleasure. The great suffering [of being tired] is stopped, but then another suffering starts from very small. So that feeling is really suffering.

It's the same thing when we feel very hot and then we go into cold water. As soon as our body goes into the cold water, we call that pleasure and it appears as pleasure. The great suffering [of feeling hot] stops and then another suffering of being cold begins from a small feeling. The longer we stay in the water, the colder we will feel. It starts by appearing as pleasure, but as it continues the feeling becomes greater and greater and greater. That feeling is only suffering, because a greater suffering is stopped but then another suffering begins as something small. So, we call that pleasure.

It's the same thing when we are very hungry or thirsty. The first spoonful of food stops the suffering of great hunger, but then another suffering starts from very small, like discomfort. As we continue eating, even the taste of the food changes and we don’t find the same pleasure that we experienced in the beginning. Then after some time we get bored; we don’t like it. That feeling is only suffering.

The feeling that we call pleasure, which appears as pleasure, comes from the mind. Of course, we think that pleasure appears from out there, but that is totally wrong, it is a hallucination. It comes from the mind, it never comes from its own side, it doesn’t exist from its own side. The whole entire samsaric suffering—the pleasure of drinking, the pleasure of sex, the pleasure of drugs and so forth—is like this. All the samsaric pleasures are like this; they are in the nature of suffering and they change into the suffering of pain. They cannot stay forever as pleasure.

The formless realms don’t have the suffering of change. There is another peace for those beings, higher than before, but still it is suffering, because they are not free from the first suffering, pervasive compounding suffering. When their karma to be in the formless realm is finished, then they have to be reborn in the lower realms, the desire realms, anywhere.

The real suffering that we need to be free of, that we have to recognize, is this pervasive compounding suffering.

So praying just for peace, we can see there are many different levels of peace within samsara, but that is not the real thing to be achieved. Praying to be free from samsara is the real thing to be achieved. This is what we need to achieve and what others need to achieve. Then we will have ultimate happiness, peace, forever. That is very important. Only [by achieving that] will we have no more suffering forever. For that we need to be free from delusion and karma. For that we need to actualize the true path, particularly the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness. That’s why the Omniscient One, the Buddha, taught the four noble truths, the Buddha’s basic teaching—true suffering, the true cause of suffering, the true cessation of suffering and the true path.

There is true suffering because there is the true cause of suffering, delusion and karma. It’s not outside our mind. We have negative mind and positive mind. Our virtuous mind creates happiness and our nonvirtuous mind creates suffering.

Of course, our virtuous mind, the positive mind, the healthy mind, creates the happiness of this life and the happiness of future lives, and we can achieve ultimate happiness, becoming free forever from samsara and attaining the peerless happiness, buddhahood. Our nonvirtuous mind, the unsubdued mind, creates hell, the heaviest suffering. It creates samsara, just as our healthy mind, the virtuous mind, renounces samsara and creates nirvana.

Regarding our everyday way of thinking in life, if we think in a positive way, a correct way, a healthy way, this brings happiness and peace. If our everyday thinking in life is in an incorrect way, a nonvirtuous way, an unhealthy way, it creates suffering in our everyday life.

The total cessation of the negative mind—delusion and its action, karma—is the true cessation of suffering, nirvana. We can achieve this because there is the true path—method and wisdom—not only realizing the ultimate reality, but directly perceiving ultimate nature, emptiness. We can do this because our mind and sentient beings’ minds have buddha nature.

The ultimate reality of the mind is emptiness, that which does not exist from its own side, that which is totally empty from its own side, while the mind is existing—that is buddha nature. Because of that, we can be totally liberated from suffering by realizing the true path, the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, which ceases the seed of delusion and karma. By ceasing the cause of suffering, then all the results of the suffering cease and we are free forever. But this is still not the ultimate peace.

Ultimate peace is buddhahood, the total cessation of the subtle obscurations. That is the highest happiness. I say, welcome, mother, to this highest happiness.

With much love and prayers ...

In the morning, do the practice of blessing the speech well. [You can find this practice in the FPMT booklet How to Make My Lives Wish-Fulfilling: The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness.]

This practice gives your speech power, so then you will be successful when you talk to others and they will listen to you. While you are talking to the person, on your tongue is all the buddhas’ holy speech power, so then others will listen and follow.

This is one thing to really help for success. Blessing your speech is needed every day, basically for enlightenment and to be able to enlighten other sentient beings. Please remember this.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind email and thank you for your kind service to me, to sentient beings and to the teachings of the Buddha.

Regarding your question about practice, what comes out very good is for you to practice Chenrezig and Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga, which also contains a lamrim prayer. The lamrim contains the whole path to enlightenment, so each time you read it, imprints of the whole path to enlightenment are left in your mind. If you can, do Lama Chöpa (Guru Puja) from time to time. That is also very good.

The other thing if you have time is to do Lama Chöpa in the morning and Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga in the evening, and after that you can do dedication prayers, such as the King of Prayers. In this way you are doing very extensive dedication every day for all sentient beings, and it also creates the cause for you to be reborn in Amitabha’s pure land at the time of death.

You can also do any other prayers, like Vajrasattva, in the evening time. Recite the long mantra at least twenty-one times, with the remedy of the four opponent powers. If you can, do prostrations by reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas names one time through. It would be very good if you can also do that in the morning, so that would be twice a day. That would be very good.

If you find time, study the lamrim and do meditation. Study one lamrim text, going through it step-by-step, meditating on each part in order to have realizations, then when you finish the text start again at the beginning, from guru devotion. In this way you can go through it three times. This is called effortful meditation.

Then do effortless meditation, no matter how many weeks, months or years it takes. Continue until you have stable realizations of guru devotion, until you see the one guru as all the buddhas from your side, and one buddha as all the gurus from whom you received a Dharma connection. Do this until you can see that one hundred percent and you are able to see it for a long time without effort.

If possible, also do a little bit of meditation each day on the graduated path of the lower capable being, the different levels. Meditate on the perfect human rebirth, until you see from your side how precious this human body is, more precious than wish-granting jewels, than skies of wish-granting jewels. Meditate on this human body as most precious, until you feel this for months and years without effort, that it is most precious. You can go on like that relating to each meditation, so after that meditate on its usefulness, how it is difficult to find again, etc. Then impermanence and death, which has the nine-round meditation, then the sufferings of the lower realms, refuge and karma.

After you have these realizations, train the mind in the path of the middle capable being, particular the sufferings of the deva and human realms, the general sufferings, the six and twelve types, and the twelve links, until you see that samsara is like being in the center of a fire or like being in prison. It’s unbelievable. Then without effort you will have renunciation to be free from samsara, every second without effort.

Also meditate on bodhicitta until the thought to achieve enlightenment arises day and night without effort, and you want to achieve enlightenment for every person you see.

Then emptiness. You should do this every day, I’m not sure of the time, by reading the Heart Sutra or different quotations, reciting and meditating, even if it is a short verse on emptiness.

Realize that the real I—what appears, what you trust in—is false. Recognize it as false and then see it as empty; after that see it is totally empty, it does not exist. From the beginning by training the mind in that we see as a result—what we realize first is ultimate truth and through that we realize the truth for the all-obscuring mind—that the I exists in mere name. We realize that as a result it is merely labeled by the mind. We see the I exists in mere name and because it exists in mere name that’s why it is empty, so unified emptiness and dependent arising. When we realize that, then we have completed the understanding of emptiness.

Continue in that, by training the mind in that we achieve great insight meditation—emptiness with the realization of shinä, calm abiding, deriving rapturous ecstasy of body and mind.

By training the mind in that, it leads to the direct perception of emptiness, which ceases the seed of delusion, then no delusion and karma, no suffering, and we achieve nirvana. We achieve the ultimate nature of the mind, free from delusion and karma, and with the support of bodhicitta we develop ultimate wisdom. By developing ultimate wisdom, the direct perception of emptiness, by developing that with the supporting method, bodhicitta and so forth, then we can achieve full enlightenment. We are able to see the subtle obscurations and complete the mind in all the realizations, and we become a perfect guide, able to do perfect works for sentient beings.

Also recite OM MANI PADME HUM and do Chenrezig meditation to purify negative karmas and defilements collected since beginningless rebirths. This is the most powerful purification and the way to collect the most extensive merits, and the way to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings—to free every single sentient being from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to the peerless happiness, full enlightenment.

Please continue to make your life most meaningful with the thought of bodhicitta day and night and in everything that you do.

With much love and prayers ...

My very dear one,
First thing in the morning please recite these mantras:

• Mantra for Blessing the Speech.
• Mantra to Multiply Virtue. This increases the effect of merit created that day. If this mantra is recited seven times, whatever virtue is created that day will increase 100,000 times, according to the Sutra of the Wheel of Complete Dedication.
• Mantra to Bless the Rosary. This increases the power of the mantras you recite by one hundred sextillion times. This is according to the Unfathomable Mansion of Increasing Jewels.
• Mantra to Bless the Feet. By reciting this mantra seven times and blowing on the soles of your feet or shoes, then however many creatures die that day under your feet will get reborn in the deva Realm of the Thirty-three. This is according to the Manjushri Root Tantra. This mantra is very good to do if you have a lot of ants on the floor in your house or if you have to walk on the grass or beach where there are many tiny insects, crabs and so forth; if you have to walk in places where there are many tiny creatures. Also, if you have to drive somewhere in your car you can recite this mantra and blow or spit on each tire of the car, wherever the tire will be touching the ground. Don’t misunderstand this and think that when you have recited this mantra then you can walk or drive over insects. Don’t misunderstand this, and don’t run with ignorance.
• Mantra of the Exalted Completely Pure Stainless Light. It’s important to know the benefits of this mantra and to recite it.
• Mantra Taught by Buddha Droden Gyälwa Chhö. It’s important to know and to have the benefits of this mantra, not just the mantra,

[These six mantras can be found in The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment).]

Then set your motivation for the day using the bodhisattva attitudes.[You can find the text here.] You can do an elaborate motivation or the short one, but the main thing is to generate the motivation.

The main motivation in your life should be bodhicitta. This is the main motivation because it is the cause of enlightenment. This motivation should be not only for Dharma practice but also for any activity you do—eating, walking, sleeping, going to the toilet—to make all your activities become Dharma, the cause of enlightenment.

After that you can recite Calling the Guru from Afar, either the short or long one. Or you can do another lamrim prayer.

Then start Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga or another guru yoga practice. You can use that practice as a basis for your lamrim meditation. Before Lama Tsongkhapa absorbs into you, this is when you stop and do a direct meditation on the lamrim, so it is within the Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga.

Do the meditation so as to produce the experience, then after that, produce effortless experience and realization. Effortless experience and realization are the same. Whatever your level of mind, stabilize that, and meditate using mind training.

The main lamrim text for you to use is Manjushri’s Own Words [The Sacred Words of Manjushri; Tib: Jam päl zhal lung] by the Fifth Dalai Lama. This is the main text for you to use to meditate on the lamrim and understand it. It doesn’t mean you can’t read other lamrim books, but it just means this is the main one.

There is also one lamrim text called Zhamar Lamrim,¹ a famous Gelug lamrim, not the Kagyu Zhamar. This text was written by a teacher of one of the Dalai Lamas. I don’t think it is translated into English, but maybe in the future, when it is, you can get it. It could possibly be translated but I haven’t seen it.

These two lamrim texts are the basis for your learning and study. To begin with, study them every day, which means reading through the text slowly and relating it to your own life.

Once you finish the text then start again and in this way you will gain understanding. If you can, read it four times, mainly to develop understanding, then start to do meditation, first applying effort by following the outlines that I have put together.

These are mantras for success:

• Great Increasing Jewel
• Mantra Without Attachment [from the Golden Light Sutra.]

If you can, recite these two mantras each day for success, not only temporary success, but mainly for success in attaining enlightenment. They will also be good for the success of your business.

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

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

Notes

¹ Zhamar, also called Amdo Zhamar (Wylie: a mdo zhwa dmar), is a tulku lineage from Amdo, Tibet. The fourth lama in that tulku lineage, Gendun Tenzin Gyatso, was a preceptor of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and has a nine-volume collected works. One of those texts is a lamrim text, known colloquially as Zhamar Lamrim. This was one of eighteen texts included in the Jangchup Lamrim transmissions given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in south India. Translations in various languages can be found here. You can read more about Amdo Zhamar Pandita here. [Return to text]

My dear one,
Thank you very much your sweet letter, I am so sorry for the many eons of delay. I checked and it comes out very good for you to do White Tara practice.

Regarding your preliminary practice, this is what came out beneficial for you:

• Refuge: 40,000
• Vajrasattva: 300,000
• Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga: every day

Do Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga every day. Within that there is a lamrim prayer, The Foundation of All Good Qualities, which contains the whole path to enlightenment, condensed in this short prayer. If you don’t have any other prayers, then this is short and very, very profound. If you can, do that.

There is also a short daily motivation practice [The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment).]

Please make the life most beneficial with the good heart, bodhicitta motivation, as much as possible.

Thank you very much. If you have more questions you are most welcome [to write again.]

My most dear, most precious, most kind, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter.

I am sending my morning motivation, The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment.) This is my most important advice. I often say this is what transforms our kaka life into gold, transforms iron into gold, or even transforms to a wish-granting jewel, a wish-granting life. This morning motivation is to transform our mind, so that all our daily actions, instead of becoming the cause of hell, become the cause of enlightenment; instead of becoming the cause of samsara, become the cause of nirvana; instead of becoming the cause of problems, become the cause of happiness.

What came out best for the study group is to do the middle length Medicine Buddha puja. Do this Medicine Buddha puja and dedicate for the study group to be most beneficial for sentient beings, to free them from the oceans of samsara’s sufferings as quickly as possible and to bring them to enlightenment as quickly as possible, and to be able to benefit anyone who comes to the study group.

With much love and prayers ...