Practice Advice
Rinpoche gave the following advice to a student who had lived in a psychiatric hospital for the last fifteen years, was an alcohol and drug addict, and had AIDS. He had written to Rinpoche requesting practices.
My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I am sorry it took so long to reply. I checked what practices you can do:
- Recite Lion-face Dakini mantra and short prayer.
- Recite the Heart Sutra.
- Do Guru Shakyamuni Buddha daily meditation.
- Wear the protection liberating from bondage of body, speech, and mind, make sure that you don’t get it wet, so take it off when you shower.
- Read any books by me, Lama Yeshe, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Lion-face Dakini mantra and short prayer is not your main practice, but this is for healing and to solve mental problems, also to protect you from harm from other beings that influence your mind and harm you. This comes from your negative karma and this is actually what is giving harm to you—your own delusions, the root of samsara: ignorance, not knowing what is the ultimate nature of the “I” and aggregates, and the self-cherishing thought. This is the main enemy that gives you all your problems, including AIDS; whatever problem one experiences comes from this.
Regarding the Heart Sutra—this comes from Buddha and is a conversation between Chenrezig and Shariputra. Shariputra asks questions and Chenrezig explains the answer through Buddha’s blessing. Reciting this leaves a good, positive imprint on your mind. The Heart Sutra is the heart of all of the Buddha’s teachings on the perfection of wisdom. This is Buddha’s most cherished teaching because it causes sentient beings to actualize the wisdom realizing emptiness, and this is the only thing that directly cuts the root of samsara: ignorance, which is the root of all sufferings and their causes: delusion and karma. The wisdom directly perceiving emptiness eliminates all the defilements, gross and subtle, so that one can achieve everlasting happiness and then full enlightenment. There is no other method that can directly eliminate all the gross and subtle defilements, only the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness.
Countless buddhas and bodhisattvas all came from this realization, that is why the perfection of wisdom is called the great method. There are different types of wisdom but this is not like the wisdom of how to fix a car or motorbike, this is the wisdom of the ultimate nature of phenomena—emptiness, the only truth. The omniscient mind, dharmakaya, the wisdom directly seeing the emptiness of all phenomena, non-dual wisdom—this is the ultimate wisdom.
The Perfection of Wisdom explains the whole path to enlightenment. Each time you read this it leaves positive imprints on your mind to realize the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness. In this way, you come to understand the meaning of the Perfection of Wisdom teachings.
By developing the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, one eliminates all the defilements, one is able to achieve liberation, full enlightenment, great liberation, and then be able to liberate so many sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering, liberating countless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, suras, and asuras, as well as bringing them to great liberation and full enlightenment.
Reading the Heart Sutra has all these advantages. This is what you receive on your mental continuum. We can’t imagine it. If you really understood it it would blow your mind, it would blow all sentient beings’ minds. It is a most inspiring, really fantastic practice. No matter how deep one’s sufferings are, that one is going through, by reading the Heart Sutra it brings the ultimate end to all your sufferings, it gives you the ultimate freedom and liberation because it eliminates the karma and delusions, so you don’t have to reincarnate any more—the circle of dying and rebirth and all the sufferings we experience in-between. So, you can see this practice is extremely powerful.
The other practice for you to do is the daily meditation of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha. This is what you can do each day—the Heart Sutra and Guru Shakyamuni daily meditation. Lion-face Dakini is mainly for purifying your obstacles.
What makes your life most meaningful every day is if you continue to try and live your life with the thought of benefiting others. Think that the purpose of your life is to free others from suffering and to bring them the cause of happiness, not only temporary happiness but ultimate happiness. This is the purpose of your life. Keep your mind in accord with this, and keep your attention on this. Always try to help others with your body, speech, and mind. This will give you the most satisfaction and fulfillment; this is what makes your life most happy. If this is your ultimate goal, it will cause enlightenment, the peerless happiness.
If you do the practice of Guru Shakyamuni daily meditation, recite the Heart Sutra, and live your life with a good heart, benefiting others every day, then when death comes you will be so happy, there will be nothing to be afraid of. You will feel so happy, and in this way you can be born in the pure land of Buddha and achieve enlightenment, or you can take a perfect human rebirth, meet the Dharma and Mahayana teachings, and achieve enlightenment.
With much love and prayers...