Train in the Graduated Path

Student:

Dear Lama Zopa,
I wanted to send you my best wishes for the year 2008, but I didn’t have your address with me. Anyway, I hope this year will bring peace to the world—friendship between races (the possible new US premier is the demonstration of that!!!), peace and love in our families, countries, and especially in our hearts, peace for Tibet, better care of mother nature, with less pollution, and more bread for everybody.

My mother, after a difficult period of radiotherapy, is getting better. I recite every day Tara and Medicine Buddha mantras etc. for her, my father, my kids, my lover, my friends, and everybody. I do a lot of mantras and praying for people with AIDS, drug and alcohol addicts, etc.

Please bless that puja to help my friend and all people who have fallen into alcohol or drug addiction, or are now fighting to overcome their problems, also people with AIDS.

Rinpoche's Response:

My very dear Laurence,
Thank you very much for your kind letter.

You gave detailed information in this letter, but what is most beneficial for you and all sentient beings is to live life with the bodhicitta motivation. You do everything with the bodhicitta motivation, so eating, sleeping, working, everything is done with this motivation, with the thought to benefit all sentient beings. “All sentient beings” includes your enemies, those who you hate or who hate you, so you do everything with the thought to benefit them by freeing them from oceans of samsaric suffering. As much as possible, you live with the thought to benefit others—no matter how much difficulty there is in life, or how much excitement, the thought is to benefit others.

I have two points of advice for you:

1. The most important thing is to meditate on the lamrim.
2. Study one lamrim text from beginning to end, then any questions you have, you can write down in a notebook, then you can discuss them with an elder, someone with more experience than you, like that.

Meditate every day on guru devotion until you have stable meditation every day and see all the gurus as Buddhas and all the Buddhas as gurus. Once you have stable meditation from your heart, if you achieve the realization, then you just think a little bit of the topic rather than going deeply into meditation on the specific topic.

Train in the graduated path for one year until you have realization in your heart. Take one topic each month. For instance, start with the path of the lower capable being and meditate on the precious human rebirth, death and impermanence, the suffering of the lower realms, and karma—one month for each topic. You can meditate on death and impermanence for three months. Then, move on to the path of the middle capable being and meditate on those topics for one year. Then, move on to the path of the higher capable being. Meditate on this for one year, like this: one year on bodhicitta, alternating between one month on the seven-point cause and effect instructions and one month on the method of exchanging oneself with others, to develop bodhicitta. Then, meditate for one year on emptiness.

If you don’t have realizations, you do these over and over again. Put your main effort into having realizations of renunciation, bodhicitta, and emptiness, and then move on to tantra. If you have a realization of bodhicitta, then you can spend most of your time on tantra.

This is my main advice for you. Whether there is more difficulty in life or more excitement, keeping the mind on Dharma is the most important thing, not money or friends. Without Dharma, you can’t benefit sentient beings. Without the good heart, you can’t benefit others. Also, you need Dharma wisdom to benefit others. Without Dharma wisdom, you don’t know how to benefit others. So, please develop compassion.

Thank you very much.

With love and prayer...