A Practice Plan for Life

My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter and I am very sorry for the long delay in replying.

Thank you also for the earlier letter regarding how you quit smoking.

Regarding your request for practices, first study Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand every day. Read a little each day, slowly going through the whole book gradually, thinking about the meaning and relating it to your own life by reading it mindfully. In this way, it becomes a meditation. Whatever you don’t understand or if you have questions, then write these down in a notebook, and when you are around an older student or geshe, then you can ask the questions you have and you can discuss them. Also, if you have any discoveries or things that greatly move you, also you can write them down and you can use that in your meditation later. So, it is very important to have an idea of the whole path.

Each day do one meditation on guru devotion, however long is up to you, but it is very important to do it every day. You could do it for one hour, half an hour, fifteen minutes, or you could do two sessions of ten to fifteen minutes. You can proceed like that, and in this way train the mind in order to have realizations. Read the lamrim, but every day practice some meditation on guru devotion. Try to train the mind until you have stable realizations, until you see all the gurus as all the buddhas and all the buddhas as your guru, from the bottom of your heart, without any question, definitely. This is extremely important. While reading the lamrim every day, practice the meditation on that by following the outlines, and when you finish, then go back again and go over and over them. When you have finished, then start on perfect human rebirth, and so on. Go through the lamrim like this. Until you have stable realizations, then keep going, starting from the beginning and working slowly through.

Also, every day it is important to practice one meditation on emptiness. Do this for quite some time until you have realizations. This will be easy for you to understand. By reading the lamrim, this becomes a meditation, training the mind in guru devotion first, then start from the beginning of the path—perfect human rebirth. Then, each day, practice a meditation on bodhicitta.

To clarify: one meditation a day on guru devotion, one meditation a day from wherever you are up to in the lamrim (perfect human rebirth and so on), one meditation on bodhicitta, and one meditation on emptiness.

It would be very good to do Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga every day.

The first thing is to generate a bodhicitta motivation, how to live your life. After generating bodhicitta, think: whatever virtue or non-virtue, whatever action of body, speech, and mind, whatever I am going to do, I am going to do for all sentient beings; may it become the cause of all sentient beings’ enlightenment, may it become the cause of happiness for all sentient beings.

First thing, when you wake up in the morning, rejoice that you are still alive, and that again you have the opportunity to practice Dharma. Remember impermanence and death and think how fortunate you are, by thinking about the eight freedoms and ten richnesses. By having a perfect human body you can achieve the three great means in just one lifetime. Remember that life is impermanent and death can happen at any time. After this life it is not sure where one will be born, it could be in the lower realms. If one is reborn there, apart from the most important thing that one is unable to help other sentient beings, also one has no opportunity to practice Dharma, and one’s sufferings are so heavy and for an unimaginable length of time. Also, one has not been reborn in the higher realms, even that is not sufficient, as I have mentioned before, that is not the real meaning of life. In samsara there is only suffering life, constant suffering, the suffering of change, which in samsara we call pleasure, and the pervasive compounded suffering. So, until one is free from suffering, there is not one second’s break or holiday in samsara. This is how it is experienced, since beginningless rebirths. I have been suffering in samsara and only experiencing suffering, so I must be liberated from samsara, I must achieve enlightenment, there is no other solution.

Then wash, make offerings, and do prostrations by reciting the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas. This is an extremely powerful practice. This is what helped Lama Tsongkhapa. After Lama Tsongkhapa did many hundreds of thousands of prostrations by reciting the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas, then he had realizations like rainfall. If you can, do one set (this means 35 prostrations), or two or three sets, whatever you can manage. You don’t need to recite the last prayer every time when you are doing more than one set, you just recite the last prayer at the very end (so you don’t need to recite it for each set). When you recite the last prayer, do it mindfully, confessing with the remedy of the four powers.

Next, do Chenrezig—OM MANI PADME HUM practice.

Then practice Lama TsongKhapa Guru Yoga. Within this practice you stop and do the lamrim meditation, before the guru absorbs into you. You can read from a lamrim book, or recite a lamrim prayer. It is important to read the lamrim prayer book mindfully. This then becomes a direct meditation on the whole path.

It is very important to recite one lamrim prayer each day, such as the Three Principles of the Path, the Foundation of all Good Qualities, or Calling the Guru from Afar (long version), etc. Also, you can recite the lamrim prayer that is contained at the end of your deity’s long sadhana, which contains all the stages of the path of the common and tantric paths. Each time you recite it, it leaves the imprint of the whole path, the common and tantric paths. Each time you read it, it brings you closer to realizing the path and closer to enlightenment each day. This means each day that you read one lamrim prayer mindfully, it brings you closer to liberating all sentient beings from the eons of samsara’s suffering, and brings you closer to enlightening all sentient beings, which is the purpose of one’s life. In this life, one needs to benefit sentient beings, to work for sentient beings, this is the meaning of one’s life. That is the real meaning of life, so for this one needs to practice Dharma, to achieve the path, to cease all the numberless sufferings and their causes: karma and delusion, and the negative imprints. The motivation of one’s life is to be able to liberate all sentient beings from the oceans of sufferings in samsara and to enlighten them.

Reading the lamrim becomes a direct meditation, so you can expand from the lamrim prayers using Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, as well as Essential Nectar and the Lamrim Chenmo.

Before going to bed, recite 21 long Vajrasattva mantras. Vajrasattva practice is very important to stop the day’s negative karma from doubling, and tripling the day after. After three days, the negative karma is multiplied by eight, the fourth day by 16, and so on, getting heavier and heavier. Doing Vajrasattva practice purifies the day’s negative karma, as well as past lives’ negative karma. So you can see how important this practice is, how urgent it is to purify—it should feel so urgent that you can’t wait even one second before purifying! You can see in this way if you kill one tiny insect but do not purify this, then each day the karma multiplies, and it can become a huge thing if it is not purified.

We need to purify obstacles and delusions to achieve realizations on the path to enlightenment, so that we can do perfect work for sentient beings, not just to cause temporary happiness but to cause ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara, so they never experience the sufferings of samsara again, and ultimately to bring them to full enlightenment. This means ceasing even the subtle mistakes of the mind and achieving completely all the realizations and, by the way, purifying this life’s problems, such as relationship and health problems, which all come from negative karma. Also, disasters of the elements (from fire, wind, earth, and water) also come from negative karma. All this negative karma is purified along the way, so that you don’t have to experience catastrophes or health problems, such as cancer, or if you do experience them it is only a little bit.

This all depends on how strongly, continuously, and perfectly one does purification practice. The answer to being free from all these sufferings lies in how one does purification practice.

So you can see if you do not purify each day, then one’s negative karma multiplies, then it can become so heavy, and the result is that one can experience numberless eons in the lower realms and experience so much suffering. Just by reciting Vajrasattva mantras (28 short mantras or 21 long mantras) one can stop one’s negative karma from doubling. It is unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable, it is extremely essential, and not only can it purify today’s negative karma but also past negative karma from this life, past lives, and so on. This practice is extremely important.

You are already practicing Medicine Buddha. This is extremely important for success, very powerful for achieving enlightenment and being able to benefit others.

Also, you are already reciting Chenrezig mantra, for happiness for oneself and all sentient beings, particularly to develop compassion for all sentient beings and to be able to liberate all the numberless suffering sentient beings and bring them to enlightenment.

Normally, I say there are two mantras that everyone must do, even the cockroaches, even the crocodiles should do these. Why? Because they want happiness and do not want suffering. Unfortunately, the cockroaches and crocodiles cannot do it, because they are not human, so we have a human body, we are unbelievably fortunate, so we MUST take the opportunity. We have met the Buddhadharma and have faith, we are so fortunate, and must do these practices and especially recite these two mantras.

For the rest of the day, in the break time (from sitting meditation), try to perform all your actions with the thought of bodhicitta, the thought of benefiting sentient beings. Also, you can act from the mind of renunciation, or guru devotion, whatever meditation you are up to in the lamrim that you did in the morning. Try to live your life with awareness of the lamrim, meditation on the lamrim, keeping one’s mind in that, performing all one’s actions in that, including one’s meditation, but also when one is eating, walking, and working, keep one’s motivation in the lamrim and bodhicitta. This way, whatever you do becomes the cause of the highest success: enlightenment, and this means the highest success: happiness for all sentient beings.

Sentient beings have unimaginable suffering. Even one sentient being has been suffering without beginning, it is so unbearable, so we need to liberate them as quickly as possible from the oceans of samsara’s sufferings. If we don’t liberate them, then sentient beings continue to experience all the sufferings in samsara, such as the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, suras, asuras, and intermediate state beings, who are suffering and cannot stand even one more second of suffering. Think: I must liberate them and bring them to enlightenment, therefore, I have to achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible, and therefore I need to rely on a highest tantra deity practice. According to my observation, you have a strong connection to Heruka and Secret Hayagriva, so you can choose—the one to which you feel more strongly connected. You can take both initiations when the time comes. This is the reason you practice tantra, this is the motivation.

Here I have given you a project, a plan, what to practice, how to purify negative karma and collect merits, some idea how to quickly transform your mind in the path for quick realizations. Please find attached more specific preliminary practices for you.

Generally, for you to meditate and to do retreat, as well as social service, comes out very good. Social service can also mean service in a Dharma center, but it can also mean other services.

Regarding your request, I am not qualified as a teacher, but I accept as you have requested.

Please make your life most meaningful with the thought of bodhicitta.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

Practices:

•  Refuge: 80,000
• Prostrations: 50,000, by reciting the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas
• Mandala offerings: 300,000
• Vajrasattva: Every night, 21 mantras
• Dorje Khadro (burning offering): 100,000
• Guru Yoga: Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga every day (one, two, or three sets)
• Tsa-tsas:
  • Deity: Three longlife deities (in one mold)
  • Deity: Lama Tsongkhapa
  • Number: 300,000 (divide between these different tsa-tsas)
• Nyung Nä retreat: three
• Medicine Buddha mantra: Every day
• Chenrezig mantra: Every day
• Four immeasurable thoughts: 500,000. This does not only mean reciting the prayer, but meditating on it. This is an unbelievable practice; each time you do it you collect inconceivable numbers of merits and purify so much negative karma. You should be unbelievably happy to do this practice, like you are the luckiest guy in this world.
• Deity practice:
  • Main deity: Heruka and Secret Hayagriva