Training the Mind in Lamrim

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
How are you? I’m sure you are very happy, having a meaningful life for sentient beings. I met your friend and we had a talk, and that’s why I am sending these cards, to say hello.

Please live your life with bodhicitta as much as possible, while eating, walking, sitting, sleeping or doing your job.

You must be very busy, but I think what makes life most worthwhile is if you can study Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand from beginning to end, slowly, slowly. If you read it mindfully, then it’s meditation. Do that three times. It’s very good to read it from beginning to end, write down anything you don’t understand, and later that can be discussed, not with anybody, because you might get wrong understanding, but with a student who has studied well or a geshe.

With much love and prayers ...

My dear one,
For you, the main lamrim text to study is Lama Tsongkhapa’s Middle Lamrim. Study this text three times from beginning to end.

When reading, it’s not like a puja. When you read the text, reflect on the subject by thinking about it and in this way it becomes a meditation. Take notes on any subjects which are difficult to understand and discuss later on with an old student or a geshe. When marking the book, for example, with a highlighter, do that in a respectful way with a colored pen not a black pen, because it’s like offering robes to a holy object or like painting a thangka.

FOR EFFORTFUL LAM RIM EXPERIENCE

• Guru devotion: ten months, using The Essential Nectar or the guidelines of the Middle Lamrim
• The graduated path of the lower capable being: five months
• The graduated path of the intermediate capable being: one month
• The graduated path of the highest capable being:
  • Bodhicitta: eleven months
  • Emptiness: three months

Practice this cycle for the number of months specified for each section, completing the whole outline five times altogether. Then start effortless meditation until you see that one guru is all the buddhas and all the buddhas are the guru, mixed, just one. When you have very stable realization for weeks and years, then you will able to correctly devote to the guru.

If possible, on the same day always do one meditation on the graduated path of the lower capable being.

Before, this life's happiness was most important and the next life's happiness was not important. Everything was done for this life, but through meditation you can change your mind. Then this life’s happiness is not very important and the next life's happiness is most important. All your efforts go for the happiness of your future lives. This means that you have renounced this life, more or less, by meditating on the perfect human rebirth up to karma.

Seeing that samsara is in the nature of suffering and it is like being in the center of a fire, what you need is liberation from its cause and to reach the everlasting happiness.

By realizing that the self-cherishing thought opens the door to all problems and obstacles, and cherishing others opens the door to all happiness, you must practice Dharma. You must totally change those two from how you were before. You previously acted with the self-cherishing thought, whereas now you are only cherishing others, not the self. Also, the extensive way is thinking of the kindness of sentient beings, and then generating bodhicitta.

There are also the seven points of cause and effect in order to generate bodhicitta—looking at other sentient beings who are suffering as yourself and generating infinite compassion for all sentient beings, and from there generating bodhicitta. Thus, whenever you see sentient beings, naturally you have the thought to achieve enlightenment for them. Like that, without effort realization of bodhicitta comes.

Regarding emptiness, when you see the I, action and object as merely labeled by the mind, you realize emptiness, tong pa nyi. When you see emptiness unified with depending arising—that those two are unified, complementing each other—this is the complete realization of emptiness, the pure view of Buddha Shakyamuni, Padmasambhava, Lama Tsongkhapa and Milarepa.

PRACTICES

• Vajrasattva: 50,000 mantras. These can be done either on retreat or in a loose way with daily sessions morning and night.
• Chanting the Names of Manjushri (Arya Manjushri Nama Samgiti) Recite this prayer three times. This is an incredible purification and accumulation of merit for you.

With much love and prayers ...

Dear one,
It comes out best to go to Bodhgaya and then to meditate on Liberation in the Palm of your Hand. Study this text from beginning to end, and do this twice. On top of this, it important to meditate on how samsara is in the nature of suffering, and the six types of suffering.

[The first type of suffering] is that nothing is definite in samsara and secondly, nothing gives satisfaction, however much we enjoy it, so of course there is always dissatisfaction. Nothing is definite in samsara, from life to life. Relationships change—friend, enemy, stranger, they all become like this—changing even in one life, even in one year, one month, one week or one day. In the morning that person is your friend, then by the evening they become your enemy. Also relatives change, so from life to life even relatives become enemies, changing from friend to enemy to friend.

The third one is having to leave the body again and again, whatever body is taken, however many beautiful bodies we have taken—as humans, non-humans, or worldly gods—we have taken all these bodies. Those looking very beautiful, male, female—all the human bodies that people think are very beautiful—also insects, butterflies and so forth, we have taken all these bodies numberless times. If we collect all the bodies we have taken, from one life to another life, there would be no empty space left.

Lama Tsongkhapa explained, for example, our father’s father’s fathers. It goes on and on like that, and also our mother’s mother’s mothers and so forth. From that meditation you can get an idea that this body is just a collection of old sperm and egg. Sperm from our father’s father’s fathers, and egg from our mother’s mother’s mothers. Realize it is garbage, it's extremely old garbage, and do not get attached. In this way, it helps to be free from samsara and to end taking rebirth [the fourth type of suffering], even though it has no beginning.

[The fifth type of suffering] is that after being high you become low; it’s always like that. We have been higher in the desire realm, as devas—form realm devas, formless realm devas, and the tip of samsara. We have received these rebirths numberless times through meditation, shamatha, but still we are not free from the suffering of samsara.

The form and formless realms are both in the nature of suffering. The form realm has no suffering of pain but it has the suffering of change. All the samsaric temporary pleasures are the suffering of change, therefore the form realm has the suffering of change. The formless realm doesn’t have those two [the suffering of pain and the suffering of change] but it has pervasive compounded suffering, from where the other two sufferings arise, being totally under the control of delusion and karma, and the contaminated seed of delusion. From there, suffering, delusion arises.

When you think about this in regards to the suffering of other sentient beings, then you develop compassion, from that you develop bodhicitta, and from that you generate the Mahayana path. If you practice tantra, on the basis of that, then practice tantra. This is the shortest path to enlightenment, so you can free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to buddhahood, the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations.

So that’s my talk. Don't only read one time, please read again and again and study it. Also you can show your friends, if you want, those whom you want to understand.

Thank you.

I checked and what comes out best is for you to do is prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas. You need strong purification to have realization of the path to enlightenment.

With much love and prayers...

My very dear one,
I discussed with __ who thought to set up her mind in the proper way, which means not going to extremes, not engaging in the heaviest negative karma, not thinking only of others’ faults and putting the blame for one’s own difficulties and problems on others. Instead, thinking in the proper way to have a healthy mind and body in order to practice Dharma from life to life. Therefore I am very happy that both of you came to see me this time.

I understand that it’s not an easy life, because the mind is not easy. One minute we think this way according to guru devotion and then next minute we think the opposite. This is quite normal for us sentient beings.

My suggestion is for you to read the lamrim and really stick the mind with that. If the mind sticks with lamrim, you will achieve a lot of peace, happiness and satisfaction, in this life and beyond. In this life you will have good relationships and happiness and you will be able to offer service to others. Otherwise you will suffer so much and also cause many difficulties to others. Even living together there will be lots of fights and not much peace, but a lot of suffering.

My idea is for you to please read Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand well from beginning to end, especially focusing on guru devotion, which is the root of the path. Depending on that we have obstacles or success. Also [read and meditate on] the perfect human rebirth, karma, and the suffering of samsara—each realm. That is very, very important. The extensive kindness of mother sentient beings is also very important, and then renouncing samsara and bodhicitta as much as possible.

Read it well from beginning to the end and meditate on it. Please read it well twice—slowly and well—relating it to your life and meditating on it while you read. After that spend five months meditating on guru devotion; two months on the perfect human rebirth up to karma; five months on the graduated path of the middle capable being; seven months on bodhicitta, the graduated path of the higher capable being, and nine months on emptiness. This means [that topic] is your main focus during that number of months.

Then go back again and whatever realization you didn’t have, go back again and again for that number of months. Do this based on the Guru Puja or Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga or Six-session Guru Yoga.

Please remember every morning when you wake up, rejoice, thinking, “I didn’t die today.” Think that life is very short; don’t think, “I will live very long.” If you think that you will live long, then problems will arise due to attachment, anger and the selfish mind. This increases problems in your life and causes harm to others, so it’s important to think about impermanence and death. It is very sure that death can happen any day, and if you remember that then everything will be very quiet and all the disturbing emotional thoughts will go away. The mind will be very quiet, there will be more Dharma in the heart, we will have a sincere wish to help to others and we won’t waste time. Please try to follow this as much as you can.

With much love and prayers...

My most dear, most kind, most precious wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you for your email. Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand is the main lamrim text you should study. Also try to read Lama Tsongkhapa’s Middle Lamrim, but the main text is Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. 

Please read and study it from beginning to end. Write down any questions you have and check with a geshe or teacher who has studied the lamrim well. Read it twice from beginning to end. You can read any other lamrim text, but Lama Tsongkhapa’s Middle Lamrim is one main one.

Anything you don’t understand, discuss with students who have studied well, who know it well. There are Sangha there, so it is easy to get questions answered and easy to study. If you know someone else or other Tibetans, then you can do that with them.

Use as a daily book The Essential Nectar or the outline of Liberation in the Palm of your Hand. After that, you can do effortless meditation.

This is the most important thing in the life, how to develop your mind in the path to enlightenment. Even if your life becomes busy, daily meditation on the lamrim is so important. Do this in the morning and in the evening, or just in the morning two times, or at least once a day with the preliminary practices.

With much love and prayers...

We have achieved a lot in Dharma education and study. Now we have to put effort into attaining the path. I don’t mean just doing a three-year retreat and counting a certain number of mantras, but the attainment of the path through the lamrim.

Realizations don’t have to come from being in formal retreat, you can achieve them while working and studying with meditation on the lamrim. You can be doing business and studying and meditating on the lamrim. You can have family and a job, and be meditating on the lamrim. The main thing now is attainment.