First Study the Whole Lamrim

My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. Your inspiration to practice Dharma is the most important thing in your life. Without Dharma there is no happiness, and there is no question that you can't achieve enlightenment. You can't liberate sentient beings from all the sufferings and causes and bring them to enlightenment. You can't even achieve for yourself total liberation from samsara. All the happiness of future lives has to come from Dharma because it comes from past good karma, that which is Dharma. So, without Dharma one can’t have any success in this life: success in business, marriage, or any happiness you want.

So, the best thing to help others is Dharma, and the best thing to help oneself is Dharma. Among the best, most important, things in this life is to meditate on the lamrim and to have realizations—to complete the path to enlightenment and to make yourself fully qualified to liberate numberless sentient beings who are obscured and suffering and to bring them to peerless happiness and full enlightenment.

That is what makes life most productive—you begin the path, complete the path, and finish your Dharma practice. You don't need to practice forever, whereas the works of this life and samsara are endless. No matter how much you suffer and bear hardships for samsaric pleasures (temporary pleasures), there is no end.

First study the whole lamrim. Then, each day, practice one meditation, following the graduated path. Do that for maybe one year. When you have finished, start all over again. After the first year, try to meditate on each topic, one by one, until you have realizations.

Meditate on guru devotion every day in the morning, then after that, if one has time, in the morning or any time, then practice one lamrim meditation starting with perfect human rebirth. Also, do some meditation on emptiness every day. For the rest of the day, when you are away from actual seated meditation, which means your working life, then continue without removing the mind from the topic, whether impermanence, compassion, guru devotion, or emptiness. Whether it is your meditation session or working life, do everything with a bodhicitta motivation.

Your deity to achieve enlightenment quickest is Guhyasamaja. This is a Maha-anuttara Yoga Tantra deity. So, some time later, you can take the initiation when it comes around and read the commentary, practice meditation on the whole tantric path, and also do the retreat. That enables you to achieve enlightenment quickest!

Please study well these instructions. Then you will understand well how to follow the path.

With much love and prayers,
Lama Zopa

Please make your life most beneficial with bodhicitta.