Next Steps for a New Student

My very dear Robert,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. Sorry it took a long time to reply.

I checked which practices you should do for your quickest enlightenment. These are practices for you to do for your whole life.

If you haven’t already received instructions in the past about your personal deity, I have checked about this. For your quickest enlightenment it comes out best to practice Guhyasamaja. Later you can receive the initiation. First you need to go over the lamrim teachings. This is a guideline for your whole life: the main practice is lamrim.

You can even meditate on the lamrim during your working life, for instance working with the thought of bodhicitta. So, for a few months (see below), try to focus on that subject of the lamrim even during the day, when you are driving, working, eating, etc., so that the lamrim is integrated into your life.

Reciting the Sutra of Golden Light has incredible benefits, bringing success in achieving the whole path, so that you can enlighten sentient beings. If you become enlightened quickly it means you can liberate so many sentient beings from samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment more quickly. Also, reciting this sutra contributes to world peace and happiness in the country where you live, so this is an incredible contribution for world peace.

With much love and prayers,
Lama Zopa

Practices Given:

•  Prostrations: 6,000 to the Thirty-five Buddhas
•  Samaya Vajra: 400,000
•  Guru Yoga : 9,000 to Lama Tsongkhapa
•  Tsa-tsas Deity: 200,000 divided between the following deities:
  •  Chenrezig, Manjrushri, and Vajrapani (the essence of all Buddha’s compassion, wisdom and power)
  •  Lama Tsongkhapa
  •  Heruka (most of the tsa-tsas should be of this deity)
  •  Vajrayogini
  •  Mitukpa (most of the tsa-tsas should be of this deity)

You can give tsa-tsas to people as a gift for their altar. They can be placed in lines high up on walls, i.e. just below the ceiling, then small lights can be offered under each tsa-tsa. They can also be put in large statues or in stupas as relics. They can be put on mountains, in respected places, with protection from the weather, i.e. in a cave or similar. If a local Dharma center has a tsa-tsa house, which is a simple stupa, they can be put inside this.

•  Sanghata Sutra recitations: 110 recitations
•  Sutra of Golden Light: Recite three times each month for the rest of your life
•  Lamrim Meditations:
  • Guru Devotion: Two months
  • Graduated path common to the lower capable being: Four months
  • Graduated path common to the middle capable being: Six months
  • Graduated path common to the higher capable being: Bodhicitta: Seven months
  • Emptiness: Four months

Work through these meditations repeatedly until you achieve stable realizations. Also, it doesn’t mean you only meditate on each subject for this amount of time. It means that this is your main focus for those months. Even when you are doing a deity retreat you still can do the lamrim meditation as a motivation, or you can do it during mantra recitation.