Life Practices
A student wrote to Rinpoche to request advice about life practices and future ordination.
Yes, it may be possible for you to ordain in the future.
Life practice advice
- 100,000: Generating the four immeasurable thoughts
- 20,000: tong-len
- 40,000: Guru yoga counting migtsema mantra on the basis of Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga
- 20,000: Mandala offering
- Do at least 15 nyung näs every year.
Lamrim
Choose one lamrim text to study from beginning to end three times. There are the Great, Middle and Short Lamrim texts by Lama Tsongkhapa. The short one is called the Hymns of Experience and there is a commentary to that by the Third Dalai Lama called The Essence of Refined Gold. Then there is Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand by the great enlightened being Pabongka Rinpoche and Manjushri’s Own Words [The Sacred Words of Manjushri; Jam päl zhal lung] by the Fifth Dalai Lama. There are different lamrim texts available in English and of course in Tibetan there are many more. So choose one lamrim text and read it from beginning to end three times.
The things you don’t understand mark with orange color as an offering, like painting a buddha statue or thangka, or like offering color or robes to holy objects, and so forth. In other words, mark the text in a respectful way. Don’t mark the texts with black ink. Marking texts in a disrespectful way creates negative karma and is a cause to be born in the lower realms. Also, you can write down all the questions you have, everything you don’t know in a book and then discuss these afterwards with the geshes or Western students who have done very good study in the Basic and Masters Programs. If there is someone who has studied well, then they can help.
Practice effortful meditation on the lamrim outline for the number of months indicated. Follow the outline five times, then do effortless meditation.
Your Deity
Vajrayogini, but Yamantaka also comes out. So first you can take Yamantaka initiation if you haven’t already done so, then do the retreat and study. Then you can take Vajrayogini initiation and practice Vajrayogini. In your daily life practice—the sleeping, eating and all the yogas—if you prefer Vajrayogini you can do that, but if you prefer Yamantaka you can do that. Vajrayogini also comes out very strong. In the future you can also study and do retreat on Vajrayogini.