Restarting Daily Practice

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for reminding me of all the activities that happened in the past. Thank you very much for any merit I collected by meeting you. I dedicated that to you, so that your life may be most meaningful and beneficial for every single creature, for all sentient beings—the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, all the animals, including the tiniest flies, those in the grass that run away when you walk there, and all the tiniest worms, anywhere, in any universe, even those under the earth; and those that human beings don’t see, in any universe, the numberless human beings, suras and asuras—so that you may achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible, in order to free the sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment as quickly as possible. I dedicated for that.

At the moment I am here in Washington State, and I am well. Soon I will go to Portland to the Maitripa College there and I will do the lung of the Prajnaparamita Eight Thousand Verses and other teachings. Then I will go to Boston to do initiations and teachings, the seven-point thought transformation, then I will go to see His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, and then Singapore, Europe, south India and Nepal.

However, the most important thing—I am not a holy being, but as you received Dharma connection from me, yes, as I am your guru—sorry, so I want to request you to do this practice first thing in the morning: The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment). This is the most important thing.

By doing the practice, this transforms your life, sorry to say this, from kaka into gold, from iron into a wish-granting jewel for the sentient beings.

It would be so good if you could do this practice every morning—it brings light into this world, not only this world but the six realms. You bring light in this way, like the sun shining in the world.

I hope to meet you somewhere. This practice is the most important practice, so even if we meet in this life or the next life, whenever, doing this practice is the most important thing.

I have met your daughter almost every time I’ve come to that area. She has come many times and she still looks the same, but I didn’t have much time to talk when we met.

With much love and prayers to all the family ...

My very dear one,
Thank you for your letter. I am sorry for the many eons of delay in replying.

It is important to think that this is a past habit, negative imprints ripening, not only from this life but since beginningless rebirths. It is so important to purify these, as there is so much to purify. It is unbelievable, one can’t imagine how hard it is. It is not easy, therefore, we need to remember to do some essential things every day. It is very important to meditate every day, continuously. You need to plan to do this for eons, not just for this lifetime, not just for 100,000 lifetimes, but for eons. Make the determination and plan to do lamrim meditation. This is the antidote. This is the medicine. This is the safest way to protect your mind from negative karma, from the lower realms, from suffering in the hell realms; this is the most important thing to do for liberation from samsara and to achieve enlightenment. If you think that you only have to do it for a few years or months, then you will collapse, get discouraged, etc. As it is mentioned in the teachings, a chilli plant is hot, and by adding just a few drops of honey, just a few times, it doesn’t make it sweet.

Meditate on guru devotion every day. This is one meditation to do every day. On top of that, do one other lamrim mediation, going through the topics. Start with meditation on the lower scope, from perfect human rebirth up to karma. This includes the cause of suffering of humans and devas, the twelve links, the shortcomings and sufferings of the lower realms, impermanence and death, the perfect human rebirth, and karma. In this way, slowly go through the lower scope. Whatever meditation you are up to, continue the next day, slowly. The point is to develop the meditation until you have stable realizations. So, you keep circling back, starting from the beginning again of the lower scope, and you do this for one year. You need to try to actualize the realizations.

Then, the following year, as well as doing daily meditation on guru devotion, when you do the lamrim meditations, you focus on the middle scope. You keep circling back, starting from the beginning again of the middle scope, and you do this for one year. The point, again, is to try to actualize the realizations.

The following year you focus on bodhicitta. Keep circling back, starting from the beginning again of bodhicitta, and do this for one year. The point is to try to actualize the realizations.

The following year you focus on emptiness. Keep circling back, starting from the beginning again of emptiness, and do this for one year. The point is to try to actualize the realizations.

Use different lamrim texts, Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand and the Lamrim Chenmo, as a basis, going through all the topics.

Generally, for your day-to-day practice, first thing in the morning chant OM MANI PADME HUM to generate your motivation for the day. Attached is a motivation I have put together, a very basic but essential one. This is the essence and you can elaborate on this.

After this, wash. Then, if you are making offerings, set out the offerings, water bowls, etc., then do prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas. If you can, do 100 prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas; that is the best. If you can’t do them all, then whatever you can. Then sit and practice guru yoga. As you have to do Six-session Guru Yoga, then you can do that. As motivation you can recite Calling the Guru from Afar, then Six-Session Guru Yoga. If you can do Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga as well, that would be great, as it has the special quality to develop wisdom.

In the evening do Vajrasattva practice – half a mala or one mala – before going to bed.

If you can, take the Eight Mahayana Precepts again and again, whenever you can. This does not mean every day, but when you can. It is especially good to take them on auspicious days.

You can take the five lay vows from Geshe-la. You can take three or four vows for your lifetime. This enables you to collect merit all the time, day and night, even when you are sleeping.

You must do lamrim prayers such as the Foundation of all Good Qualities, etc, also your deity’s graduated path prayer (this is found at the end of your deity’s long sadhana). It is extremely important to read this every day, as it plants the seed of enlightenment.

At the end of the day make dedications. Also, dedicate after any practice, but especially at the end of the day. It is extremely important to dedicate your merits to achieving enlightenment, for all sentient beings, to actualize bodhicitta in your heart and in the heart of all sentient beings. It is so important to dedicate your merits and seal them with emptiness. 

Due to the merits of the three times, collected by me, buddhas, bodhisattvas, and all other sentient beings, which are totally non-existent from their own side, may the “I,” which is also totally non-existent from its own side, achieve Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment, which is also totally non-existent from its own side, and lead all sentient beings, who are totally non-existent from their own side, to that enlightenment, which is totally non-existent from its own side, by myself alone, who is also totally non-existent from its own side.

With much love and prayers...

My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter, which I read. I am sorry for the long delay in replying.

So, it is due to past karma, how things happened in your life, and the conditions that ripened after you were a monk. However, my advice is nothing new, as you know. So, it is important to remember impermanence and death as much as possible. Read Pabongka Rinpoche’s teachings on impermanence. If you can’t finish it all, then read a little bit the next day and each day.

First thing, when you get up, generate your motivation for life, how you are going to live your life. After generating bodhicitta, think: I am going to do all my activities with this motivation. Then, whatever action you do, whether it is prostrations, reciting mantras, but especially all one’s activities, such as sleeping, talking, eating, studying, etc., think I am going to achieve enlightenment for all sentient beings, and pray that all your activities may become only the cause of enlightenment for all sentient beings.

Then, think: Due to all the merits of the three times accumulated over the three times by me, and by the buddhas and bodhisattvas, may I be like Lama Tsongkhapa, by having the same qualities as Lama Tsongkhapa himself, and be able to benefit sentient beings exactly like Lama Tsongkhapa, as vast as the sky and limitless. Make strong prayers like this. After your motivation, then generate bodhicitta by doing the seven techniques of cause and effect, exchanging self and others, equalizing self and others, the faults of self-cherishing, and the qualities of cherishing others, then tonglen. Practice a different one each day. While you are doing this, you can chant the mantra OM MANI PADME HUM, so you get this done.

It is good to make offerings after you have washed and, if possible, to do prostrations while reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names.

Then practice guru yoga. You can do Six-session Guru Yoga, because you have received many highest tantra initiations, so you must do that. It is very important to at least do that. If you can’t do Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga, then just do Six-session Guru Yoga, but it is very important to insert a lamrim prayer before the end, before the guru absorbs into you.

Do at least one lamrim prayer every day, such as the Foundation of all Good Qualities, Calling the Guru from Afar (long version), the Three Principles of the Path, etc. You can change it each day, like having a different appetite for the lamrim, so you don’t get bored. This is a very, very essential thing. However many million other preliminary practices you do, reciting at least one lamrim prayer a day is the most important thing. lamrim is what makes one’s life meaningful; it is the path to enlightenment. So, reciting a lamrim prayer is a direct meditation on the lamrim. Just reading a lamrim prayer, mindfully, relating it to your own life, is a direct meditation. lamrim is the essence. It has the whole path to enlightenment in it. So, reading mindfully becomes a direct meditation on the whole path, and it leaves positive imprints of the whole path to enlightenment on your mind, just within those few minutes.

This is much more meaningful than reciting 100 million mantras. It is even more meaningful than seeing Buddha, because just seeing or even meeting Buddha directly doesn’t mean you will become enlightened, because you have to have the realizations. Meditating on the lamrim ceases the defilements and gradually you will have the realizations.

This direct meditation, going through the lamrim prayer, is the most important thing in your daily life, in order to achieve enlightenment, so that then you are able to liberate numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsara’s sufferings and bring them to enlightenment. Each time you meditate on the lamrim by reciting even one lamrim prayer, it brings you one more day closer to enlightenment, and to enlightening all sentient beings.

Every day do a little meditation on guru devotion, for ten or fifteen minutes. You can do longer if you are able. Then, each week, change the lamrim subject that you are focusing on (but still do a little guru devotion meditation every day). For one week, focus more on the perfect human rebirth, next week its usefulness, the next week on the difficulties of finding it again. Keep going like this through the lamrim, up to karma. Then, go back again until you achieve all the realizations. Carry on like this, going back again until you achieve all the realizations. Either do this from your understanding, follow the outlines, or you can read Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand.

Every day, do one short meditation on emptiness. It could be reading and meditating on the Heart Sutra or using some short technique. Six-Session Guru Yoga can be your guru yoga. Within that there is the mandala offering and many important things. You can make it more elaborate if you want to.

Before going to bed practice Vajrasattva. This is very important, with the four remedial powers. Recite the mantra twenty-one times.

Every minute you can, meditate on the lamrim. Try to do everything with the lamrim mind. You already know my advice on this. Try to do everything with a bodhicitta motivation, the thought of benefiting others. Then, whatever you do, try to make it beneficial for others. You can use each moment to meditate on emptiness, on renouncing samsara, on guru devotion, on bodhicitta, etc.

Whatever activity you do, have your mind in the lamrim, as much as you can. That means that your attitude is lamrim, it is virtue, and whatever action you do becomes the cause of liberation. If your mind is in the right view, emptiness, then every activity you do becomes the antidote to samsara, not the cause of samsara. It is ceasing the cause of samsara. If your mind is in bodhicitta, then every activity you do becomes the cause of enlightenment.

By obtaining the guru’s advice, every activity brings you closer to enlightenment—every minute, every second—closer to enlightenment. Anything that is done in connection with the guru brings you closer to enlightenment.

Read Dharma books, the lamrim, and in this way it becomes a meditation when you read. If you have no time to do traditional practice, your life is very busy, with children and family, then your motivation is the most important thing, your attitude being in the lamrim is the main refuge. So, every day, minute, hour, or second, whether you go to the lower realms or enlightenment, samsara or nirvana, happiness or problems, it all depends on your attitude each hour, minute, and second—being able to keep your attitude in Dharma.

This was Buddha’s advice to the king. The king wanted to practice Dharma, but had no time to practice, so Buddha’s advice was: motivation. This is the most important thing to pay attention to, your attitude, making sure your motivation is bodhicitta.

Rejoicing is very easy and very important. You can rejoice in the merits of the three times of numberless sentient beings, as well as the merits of all the bodhisattvas and Buddhas. This is very important: to rejoice in all Buddha’s merits of the three times, also rejoicing in all the qualities and realizations. Then, sooner or later, you will become like them.

Then, dedicate all the merit collected to achieving enlightenment for all sentient beings.
You have a very busy life, so this is the essential Dharma practice, and the most profitable way to practice Dharma. Other than that, it’s up to you; it depends on how much you can do. You can increase your practice little by little.

It is very good if you go over the middle lamrim. This has just been translated by students. Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand—you already know this, but it is good to keep going over it. The Essential Nectar – use this for meditation.

You can also read the middle lamrim and use it as a basis for meditation, relating it to your life.

Since you have created children (not created by God, but created by you), now you have a big responsibility to give your children a good life, to teach them to become better human beings. You and your wife sacrificed your life for the children. So, the children need clear guidance and direction, examples, etc. Especially in the future, if they have bad friends, that can have an effect and can destroy their lives, if they don’t know better. So, it is important that you help to direct their lives so they can benefit the world, bring peace to the world, bring more harmony and happiness into the world. Make sure they don’t harm themselves or others; you need to put effort in here.

You can educate them in developing pure attitudes, being generous and kind, so they can become very kind and generous people. There is a new Universal Education book and you can try to follow that as much as you can. There are the sixteen dharmas and ten divine dharmas. These are methods to teach children and also for ourselves, on how to live one’s life. First, one practices kindness, rejoicing, tolerance, forgiveness (when someone has harmed you), and if you have done something wrong then you apologize, then there is some contentment. I’m not saying you have to be an ascetic meditator, you need some contentment. Otherwise, desire will drive you crazy.

It is also very good to do Chenrezig practice and Medicine Buddha from time to time. This is important.

Whatever number of preliminaries I mentioned to you before to do, keep this in mind, and later you might find time to do them, slowly, otherwise, in the next life. You can reincarnate again and do the rest of the practices.

Regarding your deity commitment, don’t give it up in your heart, and try to do it again, slowly, slowly. Practice whatever your main deity is, try to do it a little more elaborately, then do the other deities’ commitments more quickly. Slowly come back, and try like this.

His Holiness used to say if you are doing something for others and because of this you are unable to do your practices, then it’s OK, but if you are unable to do them because of laziness, then that is your own loss.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

Read a French translation of this advice on Facebook!