Lamrim and Guru Yoga Daily Practice

My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I am very happy to know of your interesting practice, especially your practice of bodhicitta and dedicating your merits to all sentient beings, so that their sicknesses are healed. I saw that you are reciting mantras but I didn’t see that you are practicing guru yoga—Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga or Shakyamuni Buddha Guru Yoga, or the most extensive one, which is Lama Chöpa.

Lama Chöpa might be difficult for you to do at the moment, as to be qualified you need a Highest Yoga Tantra initiation. Until then, you can practice Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga, meditating on the oneness of the guru-deity, looking at Buddha from your side and seeing oneness. That causes realizations on the path to enlightenment.

Also, reciting a prayer of the stages of the path to enlightenment (lamrim prayer) every day plants the seeds of the realizations of the whole path to enlightenment every day, and that means you become closer to realizing the path to enlightenment every day, which means you become closer to enlightening all sentient beings every day. This is by doing direct meditation on the stages of the path to enlightenment (any lamrim prayer*). This is a fundamental practice in one’s daily life. On the basis of this, then you can do elaborate meditations on the stages of the path to enlightenment, step by step, until one achieves stable realizations. If you don’t have much time, then at least do meditation on the lamrim, which means reading a lamrim prayer mindfully.

Also, it is very good if every year you can do some retreat, it can be a week, a month, or many months long, it doesn’t matter how long it is. It can be a deity retreat or a retreat on the lamrim, combined with preliminary practices, or a preliminary practice retreat combined with lamrim.

With much love and prayers...

*Note: See, for example, the lamrim prayers composed by Lama Je Tsongkhapa.