Requesting Ordination Again

My very dear one,
Thank you for your kind letter. Sorry it took a long time to answer you. I am extremely happy that you recognize that life is precious and now you don’t want to waste it. That is an extremely precious thought. If you have this, then you can practice Dharma. This is the very important foundation for listening, reflection, meditation, and having realizations on the path to enlightenment. You decided to practice Vajrasattva; that came out the best. You are purifying many eons of negative karma. That is what you do, even if you are going to die soon. Purification is needed for realizations, for your own happiness, especially ultimate happiness, and you need purification to benefit sentient beings. Even to achieve happiness in future lives, you need purification.

It is good that you are learning Tibetan. That means you will be able to read Tibetan texts and understand what they are saying. I don’t mean omniscient understanding of everything. To have general understanding, you have to have the opening of the third eye. You can read all the Tibetan texts, find out and learn all the methods, the whole path to liberation, enlightenment, from the sutras and tantras. It also gives you the opportunity to translate from Tibetan to English and English to Tibetan, especially translate the Dharma into English. You could translate for lamas who don’t speak English. In this way you can help lamas and help people. It’s true that to make Dharma practice stable it is good to practice Vajrasattva.

I am giving you general practice instructions for life, for this life, not life to life:

• Two hundred thousand: Vajrasattva
• One hundred thousand: prostrations reciting the names of the Thirty-Five Buddhas.
• There is a commentary in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand that also has an explanation.
• Twenty thousand: refuge
• Three hundred thousand: generating the four immeasurable thoughts
• Four hundred thousand: mandala offerings. This is regarded as a very important way to accumulate merit. This is an unbelievable practice. You need so much merit for everything, to achieve the complete qualities of realization and cessation. To actualize bodhicitta needs inconceivable merits, also to realize emptiness, especially to be able to liberate sentient beings from oceans of suffering and bringing them to enlightenment.
• Thirty thousand: Samayavajra. This is a practice to purify negative karma collected with the guru.
• Six thousand: Dorje Khadro fire puja
• Thirty thousand: tsa-tsas of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha

General advice for lamrim meditation and how to develop your mind on the path:

• Guru devotion: every day. How long you spend is up to you. If you are busy you can do it for a short time; if you are not busy you can spend more time.
• Five months: Precious human rebirth up to karma
• Two months: general path of the middle capable being
• Nine months: bodhicitta
• Seven months: emptiness

These are the main meditations to do for these different amounts of time. I am not saying you can’t do other things on these days, but the main meditation is on those subjects. If you are able to do it like this, that would be unbelievable. You can use the book The Essential Nectar for daily meditations. Another one to use is the outline from Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. You can use the commentary in that or in another lamrim, like Lama Tsongkhapa’s. This will make your life so rich and fruitful. Here, you are holding on to the path to enlightenment, not the branches, but the main trunk. If possible, do Guru Puja every day, or sometimes. You can do Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga with the Foundation of All Good Qualities and the Three Principal Aspects of the Path, Calling the Guru from Afar by Pabongka Rinpoche, or Hymns of Experience of the Path to Enlightenment. You can rotate. One guru yoga that combines one lamrim is the foundation or basis to develop your mind on the path. Of course, the goal of life is to have realizations in this life. For your motivation, everything begins with bodhicitta. In daily life, while eating, walking, sleeping, or doing your job, try to remember to do everything with the ultimate good heart, bodhicitta. This makes life very worthwhile.

Your deity for the quickest enlightenment is Yamantaka or Vajrakilaya, whichever you have a stronger feeling for. Practice that as your main deity for quicker enlightenment.

It came out most beneficial to take ordination after things are stable.

With love and prayer...