Sangha Practice Advice

Dear Ven. Tenzin,
Thank you very much for your kind letter and all the news letting me know about what you are doing and all the retreats. However, the essence is to actualize renunciation, bodhicitta and to have right view in the mind and then to have realization of the two stages of tantra. First the effortful realization and then effortless realization. That is what makes the life most meaningful and bodhicitta. This is what makes the life most meaningful for the sentient beings.

Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers...

• 30,000: Refuge
• 1,000,000: Tong-len
• 100,000: Vajrasattva
• 50,000: Prostrations with Thirty-five Buddhas
• 100,000: Tsa-tsa – three long-life deities
• 500,000: Mandala offerings

Read the lamrim once from beginning to end. For you, what comes out is Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. After having read the lamrim, attempt to gain effortful experience of lamrim:

• Three months: Guru devotion
• One month: Lower path
• Five Months: Middle path
• Ten Months: Bodhicitta
• Five Months: Emptiness

This is for effortful experience once you have read the complete lamrim from beginning to end. Then try for the effortless experience of whichever realization you haven’t achieved. For example, train your mind in guru devotion—to have a stable realization seeing the guru 100 per cent as Buddha, not just for a few hours or days, but stable. Then train the mind in renunciation of this life and the next life, and in bodhicitta. Do some emptiness meditation every day, even just for a few minutes, either by reading the Heart Sutra or any other teachings or stanzas, or by using the Four Analyses.

The conclusion is that life is very short and this is about one time that you have a human rebirth, which is unbelievably, most unbelievably precious, so therefore you should train the mind to have some development and realization in the path. So this way either you have four realizations, or three; if not three then two, or at least one, or at least close to the realization. Then it is so easy to have realization in future lives.

You are unbelievably, unbelievably, most unbelievably lucky to be doing one million tong-len. Your life is rich in merit even with just one tong-len, receiving the suffering of sentient beings and giving all your happiness and merit, body and possessions, to others. Just one tong-len brings skies of merit; therefore you are lucky doing so many. Incredibly lucky.

This is really good for quick purification and it is a quick way of collecting extensive merits and achieving enlightenment. It is a quick way to liberate sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment.

It is very common for many people recite many millions of OM MANI PADME HUM and other mantras. So, this will be for everything. If you are sick this is the best healing and doing this is also very good for others; it helps heal other sentient beings. This is the best psychology in the West to make the mind happy, no matter what problem there is, mental or physical. This is the best psychology and the best way to make the mind happy.

Deity: In my observation, your deity is Most Secret Hayagriva.

The practices that you have been doing so far are very good.

My very dear Linda,
Thank you very much for your kind card, offerings, and gifts.

The most important thing in our life is Dharma—to practice Dharma, to meditate on the lamrim, and to attain and actualize this in daily life. Actualize and practice Dharma as much as possible. The best Dharma practice is bodhicitta. Doing all our daily activities with bodhicitta makes all our activities Dharma and the cause of enlightenment, the cause to liberate numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsara’s suffering, and bring them to enlightenment.

With much love and prayers...

Do Lama Chöpa daily as guru yoga, to receive the blessing of the guru and lamrim realizations.

Motivation for life

The essential thing, the motivation for life, is bodhicitta and meditation on impermanence. Read different teachings on impermanence, like Heartspoon, a teaching by Pabongka Rinpoche that was translated by me. There is an extensive commentary on Lama Chöpa by his Holiness the Dalai Lama that you can get, and also the commentary by me, in bits and pieces, that you can get from old students and the office.

This should be your fundamental practice, the basis of your lamrim meditation realizations. It is also good for you to try some meditation on calm abiding, to have some experience of the graduated path to enlightenment.

After completing a cycle of lamrim meditations, if you still haven’t had any realizations of the lower capable being, put effort into that until you achieve stable realizations, whether it takes months or years.

Next is renunciation of samsara by meditating on the general suffering of each realm, the evolution of the 12 links, and the shortcomings of delusions. After that, achieve a stable realization of bodhicitta, no matter how many months or years it takes. Then, put effort into the two stages of tantra, mainly the generation stage and some completion stage.

This advice is the heart practice. No matter how many things we have to do in life, the main project is to become liberated and cease quickly our samsaric suffering. Not only that, the most important thing is to liberate numberless kind, precious, wish-fulfilling sentient beings in each realm and bring them to full enlightenment.

This is the happiest life; you are the most fortunate nun. You have the most meaningful life, more than most billionaire and zillionaire people in the world and most presidents and kings, because they create so much negative karma, like rain showers, and don’t have bodhicitta. They have to kill and harm so many sentient beings with anger.

Daily practice and motivation for life

Cleaning the room, which is part of the six preliminary practices, doesn’t depend on having dust. It’s cleaning your delusions and the delusions of all sentient beings. Then perform water offerings, then prostrations by reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names (or you can do prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas during the verse in the Lama Chöpa). Do this practice either before or during Lama Chöpa, with strong application of the four powers, and then do the concluding confession prayers.

Blessing the speech can be done before or after your “motivation for life.”

Do meditation on the lamrim. After Lama Chöpa, you don’t need to do the last verse, the absorption of the merit field and guru—just leave it there and then do an expansion, direct meditation on whatever topic you are working on, or you can do it within Lama Chöpa. This way, if you do another session during the day, you can have the merit field there and start by doing refuge, the seven-limb prayer, and a short mandala offering, motivation, and then meditation.

In the last session, absorb the guru into you before going to bed. If you like, you can do one set of prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas, and then one, a half mala, or 21 mantras of Vajrasattva.

Practices

• Mandala offering: 50,000
• Vajrasattva: 16,000
• Dorje Khadro: 50,000
• Water bowls: 4,000
• Tong-len with Nagarjuna prayer, also you can do Verse 95 of Lama Chöpa: 300,000

My very dear Pauline,
Thank you for your email. Now, it is very good if you do some retreat, lamrim, and preliminaries, at this time. For your retreat, it comes out very good for you to do preliminaries and lamrim, then after that you can offer service at the center.

Meditate on the perfect human rebirth up to karma, specifically focus on the sufferings of samsara: the general sufferings of samsara and particular sufferings. This is what you should focus on for two years. I don't mean to do retreat for two years, I mean when you do lamrim meditation each day. Try to focus on this part of the lamrim, until the realization is stable in your mind.

Life is very short, we could die any time, and most definitely, after we die, we will be reborn in the lower realms, so it is the most urgent thing to liberate yourself. For that you need the lamrim, the three principles of the path, and most importantly, strong guru devotion.

If you can, read Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, or Lama Tsongkhapa’s Lamrim Chenmo, specifically the part on the lower scope.

So, please practice Dharma, so that you can liberate sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment.

With much love and prayers...

My very dear one,
I don’t know your holy monk name, sorry. I think you definitely should try to achieve shinä in this life and try to complete some dzogrim (not Dzogchen, the wife. That is too confusing). You have a very good opportunity as a monk. You can create vast amounts of merit, which makes achieving enlightenment quicker, and with less obstacles. By living in this condition, having vows, the merit you create with every practice you do increases so much. For you it is better to be a monk. Let go of the other life, the attachment. If you don’t achieve something in this life, there is no other time for it.

Otherwise, you will experience the suffering of samsara without end. Do you really like that or not? Also, you cannot do perfect work for others without being liberated yourself from samsara and from the subtle defilements. Maybe it might be good for you to do shinä retreat at a retreat center. I plan to buy 300 acres of land in New York. You could also do it in Lawudo or in Dharamsala.

All these sunflowers are happily waiting for you to achieve enlightenment.

With much love and prayer...