Reciting Mantras

My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind note. Sorry you didn’t get to have a private interview with me, but I am very happy that you came to the center.

I checked and it would be good for you to practice the Praises to the Twenty-one Taras. Make sure always to recite with a bodhicitta motivation, with the thought to achieve enlightenment for all sentient beings, to free them from all sufferings and their causes and to bring them to enlightenment.

I also checked regarding your questions about business and it would not be good for you to take over your husband’s business or for you to start a new business right now. At the end of the year either you can start your own business or take over your husband’s, depending on your analyzing this with worldly logic. At that time there is great benefit.

You can practice Tara guru yoga (this is not the same as Cittamani Tara guru yoga, it is different, as for that one you need a Highest Yoga Tantra initiation and then the Cittamani Tara initiation) but for Tara guru yoga you don’t need that. Within the practice you can do the Praises to the Twenty-one Taras. Do the practice with the thought to achieve enlightenment and to liberate the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, asuras, and suras from all the sufferings and their causes and to bring them to enlightenment.

You should also do Chenrezig practice and Medicine Buddha practice – these two practices are very important. Everyone, even the cockroaches, ants, and mosquitoes, should recite these mantras. Since they all wish for happiness, then they should do this, especially to fulfill all the wishes of sentient beings, for all their happiness. It is most important to liberate them from the oceans of samsara and their causes – karma and delusion – and to bring them to full enlightenment. For that one needs to achieve enlightenment, to complete all the qualities, and to cease all the gross and subtle obscurations of the mind.

Chenrezig practice is specifically for you to achieve enlightenment and generate great compassion for all sentient beings, and this is what brings success. For that you need to recite Chenrezig Buddha mantra (OM MANI PADME HUM), also the long mantra, middle length mantra, and the short mantra. This is the most important practice in one’s life. It is important to not only chant the mantra but to practice compassion with everyone, with all the sentient beings of the six realms, particularly the animals and humans that one comes into contact with in one’s life. Practice compassion with all those who are around you.

Please chant these mantras, but not with the motivation for this life, health, a long life, to not get sick, to have wealth and power, etc. Even though many people don’t practice Dharma and use the mantras for their own benefit, that is not how you should do it. You should chant the mantras with the mind to achieve liberation from all sufferings for others. You should not think to fulfill this life’s success, like business, etc., that is a very short-term aim.

Medicine Buddha practice is extremely important to fulfill all your wishes, to have success in all your wishes. You should recite this with the aim for each and every sentient being to be free from all the oceans of samsaric sufferings and to bring them to full enlightenment. Each mantra you recite, think you are reciting it for other sentient beings’ happiness, for them to achieve enlightenment through the power of Medicine Buddha and prayers that Medicine Buddha made for sentient beings in the past, so that all beings can have success, achieve liberation, and enlightenment. By the way, one also receives happiness in one’s life and success, health, a long life, and whatever one wishes.

I was very happy to see your family. Here are some cards. I hope you like the photo of the Boudha stupa. The story of this stupa is as follows. There was a woman who commissioned the Boudha stupa to be built, but she died before it could be finished and her four sons completed the work. When the stupa was finished, all the buddhas and bodhisattvas absorbed into it. It is called the All-Encompassing, Wish-Fulfilling Stupa.

Of those four children, the oldest brother prayed to become a Dharma king. He was reborn in Tibet as King Trisong Detsen. The next brother prayed to be able to support the Dharma. He was reborn as minister to King Trisong Detsen. The next brother prayed that during that time he could preserve and spread the lineage of ordination, the vows that are the foundation of perfect concentration and wisdom, the whole path to enlightenment. He became an abbot in Tibet, spreading the ordination lineage vows. The fourth brother prayed to be able to remove any obstacles from the spread of Dharma. He was reborn as Padmasambhava and was invited by the king to remove obstacles to the building of Samye monastery. Padmasambhava then hooked and subdued many harmful spirits and committed them to protect the teachings as the Dharma protectors of Tibet, such as the denma chu nyi, the twelve protectors of Tibet and the Himalayan region.

This was how Buddhism spread and lasted a long time in Tibet, producing many buddhas and bodhisattvas. Now Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism has spread all over the world. Every year, all over the world, many thousands of people are able to meet the Dharma, to make their lives meaningful, to have peace, giving them an opportunity to direct their lives toward enlightenment.

It is said that any prayers made at this stupa will be actualized; particularly, whatever you pray for the first time you see it, will succeed. So, each day look at the stupa and make prayers and offerings in front of the picture. Also, you should have pictures of Chenrezig and Medicine Buddha and make offerings in front of them. You should study the lamrim, especially the book Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. This is easy to understand. Also, Lama Tsongkhapa’s Lamrim Chenmo is extremely good, deep like the ocean, but the section on emptiness is hard to understand unless you have a lot of positive imprints from past lives. You may need other texts to supplement this, but it is still good to read it.

You should read a little bit from Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand every day. Use it like meditation, don’t read fast, like doing a puja or completing a job, read it slowly and think about the meaning. Please read this book three times from beginning to end and practice meditation as you read. Make your mind familiar with it. After you have read it three times, then follow the instructions on how to meditate on the lamrim. Focus for three months on the lower path, 11 months on the middle path, nine months on bodhicitta, and nine months on emptiness. If you don’t have realizations by then, go through this cycle one, two, or three times, and train your mind in the path until you have stable realizations.

Also, every day meditate on guru devotion (no matter where you are up to in the lamrim, still do a little meditation each day on guru devotion) and on emptiness. You can read the Heart Sutra every day. This is very good, extremely powerful purification, you collect vast amounts of merit, qualities, and realizations, and you realize emptiness. This is how you get out of the oceans of samsaric suffering.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa