Practice Advice

 My very dear Chokyi,
I am very happy to receive your kind letter about the advice you received from the monk you met with. It’s good that you have been attending teachings at the Dharma center.

If you haven’t regarded the two geshes you mention as your guru, then there is a choice, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t study with them. You can still study with a teacher without regarding him or her as a guru, for example, lamrim teachings and other sutra teachings—like a schoolteacher or a professor in a university. When we devote ourselves totally with our body, speech, and mind, we look at the teacher as a Buddha with total devotion. Then we devote ourselves to that object from now on. Even after enlightenment, still you respect the guru, because enlightenment happens through the kindness of the guru, so still you respect him or her.

If you haven’t regarded either of the teachers you mention as a guru so far, then I would suggest maybe that you follow the first geshe you mentioned as a guru. But it doesn’t mean that you can only have one guru. You can have many gurus. Lama Atisha had 157 gurus. The root guru is the one from whom he received complete teachings on bodhicitta. He studied bodhicitta for 12 years with Lama Serlingpa.

As far as me, then it is up to you. If you check, and you get strong feelings of a past connection, like not something new, but some strong connection, then that shows some past connection—even though, of course, I’m not qualified. So, if that is the case, from your side, and from my side, we do what we can to achieve enlightenment. But if you don’t have any feelings like that, then you don’t need to follow me as your guru.

Your letter was sent to me. I’m not sure whether you came to Kopan Monastery or not. Perhaps I may have met you outside when I came to Kopan. I have a very vague memory—I thought there was somebody from your country that I was introduced to. It could also be my hallucination.

When doing practices I want to highly emphasize doing the practice of Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga every day—to recite the Mig-tse-ma prayer, with meditation. There is a common visualization with that which is regarding purifying and attaining the six wisdoms. From those wisdoms, you can do mainly the four wisdoms, unless later you teach Dharma, or write a book, or debate, then you do those particular meditations to achieve those wisdoms. Normally these four meditations are the most important: great wisdom, clear wisdom, quick wisdom, and profound wisdom. Every day you can do some meditation like this. Also, sometimes you can do a guru yoga retreat. That would be very very good. There is a commentary that I gave a long time ago in Dharamsala, where His Holiness lives, and in Taiwan. There is also a teaching I gave in Taiwan on different techniques of meditation on guru devotion.

Here I want to give a brief introduction to certain topics. The purpose of our life, why we were born a human being, why we have a precious human body—not having been born this time as a cockroach, crocodile, slug, leech, or mosquito—is to benefit other sentient beings. The purpose of this life is to help other sentient beings, causing happiness in this life, happiness in the long run, a good rebirth, liberation from samsara, and enlightenment for others. It is also to achieve all happiness in future lives, total liberation from the oceans of samsaric suffering and its cause, delusions and karma, and then the great liberation of full enlightenment, that which is the cessation of all mistakes of the mind and completion of all the qualities. So, our purpose is the highest benefit for sentient beings, what they need. The most important thing for sentient beings is to bring them to enlightenment.

These are the objectives of our life, what our life is for, why we survive each day, hour, minute, second—why it is so important, why we spend so much money on shelter, food, clothing, so many needs and treatments. So all this, why we have education, starting from kindergarten up to university, so many expenses, is to benefit others, to help others. In the world, so many people use all of these things to harm others, to create negative karma constantly, which causes us to be born in the lower realms again and again for endless suffering, rebirths, and suffering in the lower realms. So, the highest benefit for sentient beings is to bring them to full enlightenment. For that, first one needs to achieve enlightenment. Without achieving enlightenment, omniscient mind, you can’t serve others perfectly without any mistakes.

Therefore, you need to actualize the path, the steps on the path to enlightenment, lamrim. lamrim is the heart of all 84,000 teachings of the Buddha. Every single teaching, the Hinayana—the lower path teachings; the Mahayana sutra—the paramita teachings; and Mahayana tantra—the teachings of the vajrayana, any words from these teachings were taught by Buddha for one person’s gradual path to achieve enlightenment. Of course, there are certain practices that you can’t do now. You take different advice as your mind develops to higher levels of the path. It is like medicine, you can’t take some medicines at the beginning of an illness, then when the person is more recovered, you can take different medicines. When you study lamrim from the beginning, Lama Tsongkhapa lamrim, or any, like in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, you will understand all these points.

To have realizations on the gradual path to enlightenment depends on receiving the blessings of the guru. That is the cause of realizations. The cause in order to receive the blessings of the guru is guru devotion. With guru devotion, a pure mind, you see the guru as buddha, not an ordinary being, free from all the gross and subtle mistakes, all the defilements, karma, having the dharmakaya omniscient mind, a perfect pure mind. You look at it in this way, no matter how many weeks, months, years it takes, even lifetimes, by always putting all your effort into seeing the guru as a buddha. In all the quotations and reasonings from Buddha Vajradhara—this is the most important

So, you are right about your concern over looking for a guru, because that is the first thing. On this basis you need realization of the gradual path of the lower capability, then the middle capable being, then the higher capable being—the bodhicitta realizations. You need to have these realizations step by step, you can’t jump ahead. The basis is the three principal paths: renunciation of samsara; right view—the right realization of the Prasangika-Madhyamaka view of emptiness. Even though all the four schools of Buddhist philosophy taught on emptiness and the root of samsara, the most unmistaken one is the Madhyamaka Prasangika school.

Before you have a realization of bodhicitta, you do tantric practice, but without putting all your effort there—that wouldn’t make much sense. Without the ground you cannot complete the path. On the basis of bodhicitta you have the realization of emptiness, then you can complete the tantric path—the generation and completion stages. Then you are able to achieve enlightenment quickly, and to explain the path to countless sentient beings who rely on you to meet the Dharma, for them to follow the path and to achieve enlightenment. Those countless sentient beings don’t have to suffer for a long time, they can immediately begin the practice and follow the path.

Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga is extremely important. If you get the book where I gave different meditations on guru devotion, that should help you. Also, you should use different techniques, which ever ones are most effective for you to see the guru as a buddha. Then I think you will enjoy this meditation. You may have strong karma with it, it is possible.

In the morning you should make prostrations to the merit field: to the gurus, deities, buddhas, bodhisattvas, arhats, dakas, dakinis, and Dharma protectors, by reciting the 35 Buddhas’ names. In the evening, at night, before you go to bed, you must practice Vajrasattva. There is a whole purpose for Vajrasattva practice.

Within Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga, there is lamrim. That is extremely important. It contains the gradual path to enlightenment. You must do that every day at least once. If you go straight through without stopping but remaining mindful of the meaning, that’s called direct lamrim meditation. If you have more time, you can stop after each verses and do more expansive analytical meditation on each topic. That is very, very important. You are planting the seed of the whole path, which means each time it is bringing you closer to enlightenment.

On the basis of the guru yoga and lamrim prayer, you perform the preliminary practices there one-pointedly: refuge, bodhicitta, the seven limbs, mandala offering, and requesting prayers to the guru. You need to practice that. Then recite the dedication prayer.

Every day you must do meditation. There is no particular time, it is up to you: 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, half an hour, or one hour, even longer; it is up to you.

Here I am going to give you a list of the preliminary practices to do from now until the end of your life, according to my divinations:

1. 60,000 Dorje Khadro

2. 70,000 mandala offerings, to collect extensive merits. There is a teaching I gave on mandala offerings and also in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand.

3. Every week you must recite the Diamond Cutter Sutra. This is to quickly realize emptiness. You will enjoy it. This is really wonderful. If you want to be free quickly from the oceans of samsaric suffering, this is what you should read. It is so powerful for purification, the completion of extensive merits, and the quick realization of emptiness, then from that bodhicitta, to complete the path and quickly achieve enlightenment.

First, study Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, the lamrim. Study it completely from beginning to end, and whatever you don’t understand write in a notebook. Then you can study those points with geshes who are available and who can give clear explanations.

There is also Lama Tsongkhapa’s beginning, middle, and great lamrim—you can read those. Maybe you should start with Lama Tsongkhapa’s middle lamrim. Of course, you can read other lamrims, such as Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. It is very clear, with more explanations.

Here is some guidance for your realizations:

1. After you finish the whole text, then train your mind in the gradual path of the lower capable being for two months. That is from the perfect human rebirth up to karma.

2. Practice for one month on the middle path

3. Three months on bodhicitta

4. Two months on emptiness

5. Then you practice it all over again until you have realizations of each one

Those practices are mainly for trying to achieve realizations of guru devotion and renunciation, bodhicitta, and emptiness. At the moment this is the main objective.

After you receive a great initiation then you can do some tantric practice, but that should not be the main focus of your time. You can do some practice, but most of your time should be on lamrim. If there is a good foundation then you can build a house. If there is not a good foundation, then there is nothing you can do. It is like that.

The main deity for your quickest enlightenment is Guhyasamaja, the king of tantra. This is extremely precious! After you receive a great initiation, you have a commitment to do the long, middle, or short version of the sadhana. It is up to the lama whether there is a commitment to practice the sadhana. You practice this every day of your life, and after some time you actually become one with it. That is enlightenment. Countless sentient beings are waiting for you to guide them to enlightenment, so they don’t have to suffer for a long time.

Regarding where to live, Vietnam comes out much more beneficial than continuing to live in Australia. Vietnam is more beneficial. There you can help other people more.

One very important practice to do is Chenrezig. Recite as many OM MANI PADME HUM mantras as you can, and practice the meditation. That is to develop compassion for all sentient beings—bodhicitta. From there you complete the whole path, and are able to bring all sentient beings to enlightenment.

I hope to see you soon.

With much love and prayer...