Reading Lamrim Books
Rinpoche gave the following advice to a new student.
Dear Kim,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. Definitely according to your wish you can become students, even though I don’t have any qualities. I can, however, buy them from a shop—Wal-Mart—but maybe they will be very expensive.
I’m very happy that your books have helped your mind. That’s very important. You can read other Dharma books, but lamrim is very important. Buddha taught 84,000 teachings; Hinayana and Mahayana—sutra and tantra. All these are stages to enlightenment. The lower, medium and higher paths all come to the three principal aspects of the path—renunciation, bodhicitta and emptiness. That’s everything. We must know renunciation, bodhicitta and emptiness. These we must know, as without them we cannot practice.
Therefore it is very important to study and realize these in the whole life. That’s very important. There’s Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand and also the Great Lamrim (Lamrim Chenmo). This latter one may be too hard, but you should read it one time. Then there’s the Middle Lamrim, as well as shorter lamrim texts. Whether you read these or not is OK, but Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand is the main one for you to read in order to understand.
To achieve full enlightenment in order to free numberless hell beings, pretas, animals, humans, suras and asuras from oceans of suffering and bring them to full enlightenment is the main purpose of life. That’s all.
With much love and prayer...