Purifying Broken Commitments
A student confessed to missing commitments and not doing her practices. She also asked about taking lamdre teachings.
My dearest Sharon,
Thank you very much for your very kind letter. It is completely OK—first, your strong request to purify karma; second, confessing to me. It came out very good to purify by reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names with prostrations.
For you, it comes out very good to be at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, if that is OK. If you dedicate your life, thinking, “Yes, I will do the Hevajra sadhana every day,” it will give you a little bit of courage, that you will and can do it. Think that your life is very short, in order to motivate yourself to do your best. If you think, “I am going to live a very long time, and there are many other things to do,” with attraction to this life and comfort, then you do not see the unbelievable benefit of practicing Hevajra. It is Highest Yoga Tantra practice, which is a quicker way to achieve enlightenment than lower tantra. Taking the lamdre teaching comes out very good, but if you feel you can’t continue to do the sadhana at all, then it is different and you should wait. Maybe it will be given again somewhere after some time. When you feel better, then you can take it.
If you can, do 500,000 prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas. Sometimes, in retreat, you can do more, but do a little each day according to your time– sometimes more, sometimes less. Count them like that.
Also, please let me know if you need some help sometimes, if you run out of money or something, OK? A billion zillion thanks for all your many years of service after you met the Dharma and especially for offering the holy nuns’ house in Aptos, which was such hard work, like Milarepa. I hope to see you soon. Please take care.
With much love and prayers...