More Preliminaries
A student wrote that they had finished all the preliminaries received from Rinpoche and asked if they needed to do more.
My most dear, most precious, most kind, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. This is what came out in the observation, to do again:
- Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga: 100,000
- Dorje Khadro: 50,000
For your deity, there are Guhyasamaja, Gyalwa Gyatso and Vajrakilaya. You can decide which one you have the strongest feeling for or feel closer to. Sometimes there can be not only one deity; it’s possible to have two or three.
So you can take the initiation and commentary, and the one you have the stronger feeling for, if there is one, then that is where you do the most meditation. You can recite the mantra even now for the imprint; you can do that.
It’s very good, most important, that you continue the teachings on the lamrim and also do tonglen. If we do tonglen well, even just one time, taking and giving, then we become closer to enlightenment and we collect so many times skies of merit by taking and giving, so it is very good.
We have received not only a precious human body but a perfect human body, which is most rare, but it can be ended at any time. By this time next year maybe we’re not there and not here, or next month or next week or tomorrow or tonight or even today. The whole body, our breathing, everything, is like a machine, and it can be stopped anytime. Like a water bubble, like lightning, like water dew on the plant—thus it is said in the teachings of the Buddha.
With much love and prayers ...