Practice Advice for a New Student

My very dear Lily,
Please find attached the practices for you to focus on. However, of all of them, your main meditation should be the lamrim, the graduated path to enlightenment. The main focus should be to develop your heart in the graduated path to enlightenment.

Please meditate on guru devotion every day, as much as you can. Go through the outlines and meditate each day. Then, each day, try to also cover one other topic from the lamrim, starting from the beginning of the lamrim. So, first would be perfect human rebirth—going through its usefulness, the difficulties in finding it again, etc. Continue like this through the lamrim up to karma. Then, if your realizations are not stable, start again from the beginning and go through each section until you have stable realizations.

If you can, read Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand by Pabongka Rinpoche and other lamrim texts such as the Three Principles of the Path, Lama Tsongkhapa’s Lamrim Chenmo, and also the commentary on the Lamrim Chenmo by Geshe Sopa Rinpoche.

Like this, go through each topic up to karma - the graduated path of the intermediate capable being. This includes the general sufferings of samsara and the particular sufferings of samsara, the sufferings of the human realm, the 12 links, etc. Spend one month on this section. Then spend one month on the section on bodhicitta, each day focusing on the different meditations, such as the two types of bodhicitta techniques.

Try to meditate on emptiness a little every day. You can do the four-point analysis in the lamrim, using the elaborate, middle, or abbreviated way. You can also use the explanations from a few of the teachings that I was leading in your country, also any other meditation teachings you find that explain how to meditate on emptiness. You can write down and use all the different techniques, applying different techniques to meditate on emptiness each day. Or, if there are one or two techniques that you prefer, you can just use those.

This is how you dedicate your life to achieving enlightenment for sentient beings, which means to liberate numberless sentient beings from each realm and bring everyone to full enlightenment by your meditation on the lamrim and to have the attainments. This is the most important thing in one’s life.

Then, the second very important thing is to do your job and all activities as much as possible with the motivation of bodhicitta, the thought of benefiting other sentient beings who are numberless.

Please study the lamrim, read Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, or any other lamrim texts to get an idea. Especially read Lama Tsongkhapa’s Lamrim Chenmo. There is a lot of debate in the section on emptiness, so may be difficult to understand without receiving teachings, unless you have a lot of imprints from past lives, then you may understand it immediately.

Please try to practice in this way as much as possible.

With much love and prayers...