Life Practices After Guru Passed Away

My most dear, most precious, most kind, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. Please find attached my advice for your life practice, what to focus on.

For you, the main text to use, like a bible, the main one to focus on for your life is the Lamrim Chenmo, the great commentary of the lamrim. Please study this text from beginning to end, reading it through a few times. There is also the commentary on the Lamrim Chenmo. 

If possible, read the text through nine times, otherwise just do as much as you can. Read it from beginning to end, and anything that you don’t understand or that you have questions about, write this down in a notebook and then you can ask a geshe or a student who has studied the lamrim a lot. So this is the way to learn the lamrim. When you are meditating on the lamrim you can use either the Lamrim Chenmo outlines or The Essential Nectar as a guide. Of course, you can read other lamrim texts, but the main one for you is Lamrim Chenmo. 

Please read my advice about how long to spend on each section of the lamrim. Go through this cycle twice, then do effortless meditation.

If you can, do Lama Chöpa Jorchö practice in the morning, but if you are very busy and you don’t have time, you can do Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga instead. Finish the whole thing, Jorchö or Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga. When you get to the lamrim prayer, stop and meditate on the lamrim, according to the amount of time you need to spend on each section of the lamrim. 

Your main deity to practice is Vajrayogini. In order to bring sentient beings as quickly as possible to enlightenment, for that you need to achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible, and for that you need to practice Highest Yoga Tantra, Vajrayogini.  Before you can take Vajrayogini initiation you need to receive another great initiation. The best for you is Heruka, and if not, then Yamantaka or Guhyasamaja or Kalachakra, but you must be taking it as an initiation, not just as a blessing. 

This is how to make your life most meaningful. Even if you learn the two hundred volumes of the Kangyur, the Buddha’s teachings, or the one hundred volumes of the Tengyur, the commentaries from Nagarjuna, Asanga and other ancient holy great pandits; even you study them all and know them by heart, the essence of all of the teachings—of the entire Kangyur and Tengyur—is the lamrim. We need to practice or integrate the lamrim in our life. 

Even if we study all the sutra and tantra, the whole essence is the lamrim—correctly following the virtuous friend, renunciation, bodhicitta and right view. This is the essence of all the sutras and the two stages of tantra. After actualizing bodhicitta, then you can put more effort in tantra. 

Practices

• Prostrations by reciting the names of the Thirty-Five Buddhas: 300,000. [See Confession of a Bodhisattva's Downfalls to the Thirty-Five Buddhas.]
• Lama Chöpa Jorchö: Do this daily. If you don’t have enough time for that, do Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga. 
• Nyung näs:  Do at least eight nyung näs each year, and if you can, do more.
• Tonglen: 9,000.
• Tsa tsas: 100,000. Deities: Tara and Medicine Buddha.

I feel you are a very sincere person, so that’s why I am explaining this. It seems you do exactly what you are told by the guru, so that is very, very good. That is the most important thing. Please try to do this according to my advice. Then sometimes if you have questions, please ask.

With much love and prayers ...