Lamrim Study and Practice

My very dear Dolma,
Thank you for your kind card. It’s so good that you became a nun, not only to wear robes, but to practice living in the vows and then lamrim: practicing guru devotion, impermanence and death—anytime things can change—also bodhicitta and emptiness.

I checked regarding what comes out best for you to practice in this life and what to focus on. Please see my advice below and also additional information on how to do the practices.

The essence is: to make your life most useful you must study the lamrim, meditate on the lamrim and actualize the lamrim, develop guru devotion and live your life with bodhicitta as much as possible.

There is one more thing I would like to add. The conclusion is this, from the Kadampa geshe's advice:

1. Looking with the eye at a great distance
The eye looking for long-term enlightenment, what is to be achieved.

This is like when we are travelling and looking far into the distance to where we will reach; like looking at enlightenment—the aim is to achieve enlightenment in the heart. This is the purpose of practicing meditation.

2. The mind should not be very small; the mind should be very extensive.

This is like when we are making airplanes, boats, houses, shopping centers, swimming pools, cities, countries, etc. We have to plan the many rooms and parts, and all the things needed to develop them.

Similarly, we should plan like that in terms of learning all the different Dharma subjects, for example in sutra and tantra.

3. At the same time the mind is relaxed, not attached (this is the opposite of attached mind).

For the mind to be a very relaxed mind, inside the heart is very relaxed. Otherwise if we don’t do that, then it is easy to get lung, because we are short of merits and due to past negative karma, maybe from disturbing the guru’s holy mind and so forth.

If you look at Pabongka’s commentary on the Three Principal Aspects of the Path, you may find these exact quotes, as well as more commentary on them.

This is the general conclusion on how to practice Dharma. If there is something difficult, you can ask Geshe-la or you can write to me.

With much love and prayers...

Practices:

• Prostrations by reciting the Thirty-Five Buddhas: 10,000 times. Also, if you are able to do 100 prostrations every day, that would be so good.
• Vajrasattva: 300,000 times. Mainly do the meditation. Please follow my book on Vajrasattva, as well as the commentary by Lama Yeshe, Becoming Vajrasattva.
• Eight Mahayana precepts: if you can, take them twice a week; if not twice, then at least once a week for your whole life. This is a most unbelievable practice; you create skies of merit and purify mountains of negative karma. This is your way to achieve liberation from samsara and enlightenment. You need to receive the lineage first, before the first time you take them. Maybe go during the Lamp of the Path.
• Dorje Khadro (burning offering): 3,000 times
• The Golden Light Sutra: Recite this so you finish one full recitation within three days. (This means what you don’t finish on the first day, you continue the next day and finish the whole text within three days.) If you can, do this for one year.
• Tong-len: 300,000 times. The main thing is to focus on the meditation, not counting the words.
• Tsa-tsas:  Your deity—divide between Amitabha, the Thirty-five Buddhas and the three long-life deities (on one mould). Number: 3,000. This means you should do 1,000 of each.

It’s very important any tsa-tsa you make does not have air bubbles in it, as it is not good to make holy objects with many holes or damaged. That creates negative karma. At my house in Aptos there is an air compressor machine that shakes the tsa-tsas as they are setting and in this way there are almost no bubbles. So maybe if you are ever in California, you could do some of your tsa-tsas at my house, if that works out.

Effortful Lamrim Experience

• Guru devotion: two months
• The graduated path of the lower capable being: four months
• The graduated path of the intermediate capable being: two months
• The graduated path of the highest capable being:
  • Bodhicitta: five months
  • Emptiness: one month

After that, continue with guru devotion until you get realizations, no matter how many months or years it takes; continue until you get stable realizations, seeing your guru as Buddha from your own side, without any question—stable, not just for a few hours or a few days. The aim to have realization of the graduated path of the lower capable being, from perfect human rebirth up to karma, so practice in this way step-by-step, no matter how many months or years it takes. Then meditate on the graduated path of the intermediate state being, then bodhicitta, then emptiness. Also, you should meditate a little on emptiness every day, even if it is just for five, ten or fifteen minutes.

Please read the lamrim completely. The first three times, this can be the Middle Lamrim or the Lamrim Chenmo.