Purification Practices after an Abortion
Several years ago, a student and her partner decided to have an abortion. After the abortion, she drank too much and cheated on her partner, but she deeply regretted these actions and had made a strong determination not to do them again. She had taken refuge and vows not to kill, cheat or steal, and had also recited about 20,000 Vajrasattva mantras and written out the Sanghata Sutra twice. The student asked Rinpoche if there was anything else she could do to purify these negative actions from her past.
My very dear one,
Thank you for your kind letter and I am very sorry for the long delay in replying. Regarding your question, I checked and it came out very beneficial to do these things, to purify the karma:
- Read the Sanghata Sutra twelve times.
- Read the Diamond Cutter Sutra once. To read it more than this is very, very good, but the minimum is once.
- Every morning, do 100 prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas, while reciting their names, then at the end do the confession prayers.
- Every evening, recite the long Vajrasattva mantra 21 times, or do half a mala, with meditation on the four opponent powers.
- Then if you can, do lamrim meditations. If you can, spend one month on each subject of the lamrim. So, for instance, spend one month on the perfect human rebirth, then one month on its usefulness etc, in this way spending a month on each part of the lamrim up to bodhicitta. Do this by using the lamrim outline. You can use the The Essential Nectar book and also Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. I hope you have these books. It would be so good to develop your mind on the path to enlightenment. After you finish the lamrim, go back to the beginning and start again. Do this over three years, trying to actualize the realizations and stabilize them.
Thank you from my heart for all the practice that you have already done. Please live your life with the thought of bodhicitta, this is what makes your life most meaningful.
With much love and prayers...