Training the Mind in Lamrim

My very dear Linda,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. It is amazing all the practices that you are able to do, and that since you have taken the initiation you have never missed practicing the sadhana, and that you do it every day. All your sincerity and openness, your kind heart – especially that you feel connected with all beings – is amazing. I would think that a bodhisattva who has bodhicitta would feel this way, without any barrier of any kind, feeling connected with all human beings, whether they be Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Ven. Wongmo (who is sitting here), George Bush, Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, anyone, all those people that other people do not like, such as Mao Tse Tung, etc. When you feel like that, it shows the sign of a good heart, then, the thought to benefit everyone without partiality will come and also the feeling of being connected not only with human beings, but with all animals, cockroaches, rats, poisonous snakes, slugs, mosquitoes, tigers, crocodiles, octopi, etc.

According to my observations, it wouldn’t be good to go to the place you mentioned. It wouldn’t be most beneficial. Your work as a cranio-sacral therapist is good; working as a children’s therapist would also be good. Working in Universal Education wouldn’t be as good. Anyway, you shouldn’t have too much of a permanent, fixed mind for life. Just do whatever is beneficial each year, from time to time, like that. Having too much of a fixed idea, of something concrete for your whole life, brings trouble. Whatever and whenever you find something beneficial, then at that time, at that place, do it. The only thing that should be fixed is Dharma practice. What I mean by Dharma practice is developing the mind in the path, meditating on lamrim, and doing the preliminary practices.

The most important thing is the continuity of developing your mind in the lamrim, the stages of the path to enlightenment. It doesn’t matter if you are in Africa, Tibet, on the moon, in Iraq, etc. – whether you are rich or poor, whatever – continue to develop your mind in the lamrim. That is the most important thing.

So, after you have read the whole lamrim, like Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand or the Middling Lamrim, and you have some idea, then practice guru devotion meditation every day. How long you spend on it is up to you; even if it is just ten or fifteen minutes you should do it, until you see the guru as all the buddhas and one buddha as all the gurus, with a very stable feeling, 100% without question, from the bottom of your heart. This is a stable realization that lasts not just for a few days or hours, but continues for months and years.

Then, train the mind in the graduated path of the lower capable being, no matter how many months or years it takes, even lifetimes, until you achieve the realization of each meditation, from perfect human rebirth – how it is found just once and how difficult it is to find again – through impermanence, death, suffering of the lower realms, refuge, and karma.

After that, train the mind in the middle capable being’s path. Then, train the mind in the graduated path of the highest capable being. By training the mind in the path of the lower capable being, your mind becomes totally detached from this life. The best quality of the realization of the first lamrim is that you are able to equalize praise and criticism, a bad reputation and good reputation, receiving material things and not receiving material things, pleasure and difficulties (problems). When these things happen, you are able to equalize them. This is the best definition of achieving the first lamrim: renunciation of this life.

The middle lamrim is total detachment from samsara and samsaric pleasures – total renunciation. You see human beings and also devas’ bodies as only in the nature of suffering, like looking at kaka as kaka, and not nectar. While looking at the samsaric body, which is only in the nature of suffering (even though it might be looked at by some as something very pleasant), you realize it is only suffering. If you see a person as nectar, then you are cheated completely. You die from eating that nectar. If you realize poison as poison, then you abandon it, so it doesn’t harm you. You are protected. You see the samsaric body, pleasure – everything – is in the nature of suffering. So, you have aversion to this, not attraction. Attraction does not arise for even one second. Even in dreams, there is only aversion. You want to be free from samsara every second of every minute. You realize renunciation of samsara by meditating on the suffering of samsara: the suffering of the deva realm, human realm, true sufferings, and the true causes of suffering – all the shortcomings of the delusions. You have aversion to delusions and karma.

Then, you develop the realization of bodhicitta, the higher capable being’s path. You have unlimited compassion toward all sentient beings and their suffering, and you want to cause them to be free from all sufferings, by yourself. You also want to cause them happiness – and to do it completely by yourself alone. Then, in order to be successful in that, the thought seeking enlightenment arises 24 hours a day, spontaneously, without any effort. As you see each sentient being, you feel this spontaneously. This means you have the realization of bodhicitta.

Therefore, you should develop the mind step-by-step, like this. First, the lower capable being’s path, then the middle path, and then the higher path. The other important thing is emptiness. You should do some meditation on emptiness every day. You can use different techniques from different teachings, whichever you find inspiring. To know if your understanding, your realization, of emptiness is correct or not, check if you find a contradiction between emptiness and dependent-arising. If you are able to unify these two on one object, on the “I,” or on any phenomenon – that while the object is empty, it exists in mere name, is merely imputed by mind, that while it is existing, it is empty of existing from its own side – then that is the definition that what you realize as emptiness is correct. If it doesn’t come to that point, then the conclusion is that your understanding is incorrect.

So, until you achieve bodhicitta, put your main effort into lamrim. Secondly, do tantric practice, but spend more time on the lamrim than on tantric meditation. Then, after realizing bodhicitta, spend more time on tantra, the generation stage, and do some meditation on the completion stage.

At the moment, the best place for you to do your three-year retreat would be Land of Calm Abiding in the U.S. That would be good. However, when you are prepared, there may be other places that you can think about.

You have mentioned that you need guidance in your life and you feel insecure. For this, mind training in the lamrim is the main thing that you should do in this life. If you don’t complete the path in this life, then you continue in the next life.

Whatever other activities you do in this life, in the break from sitting meditation, do not make it a break time from lamrim meditation and Dharma practice. Rather, when you do your job or other things, try to do them with bodhicitta. Live life with bodhicitta. Also, you can relate to the meditation that you do in the morning; you can live the rest of your life that day with that feeling. In this way, whatever activity you do becomes Dharma, especially with bodhicitta. Everything becomes the cause of enlightenment and happiness for all sentient beings.

So, for the moment, that is all. Again, thank you very much for all your dedication, your life dedicated to Dharma and sentient beings. Please dedicate the merits and pray for us to receive all the funding for the 500-foot Maitreya statue. Also, please pray for all the projects offering service to the Sangha, to the FPMT Sangha, all the monasteries and Sangha in the world; for the holy objects in the world to be able to enlighten all sentient beings quickly; for all the social service projects in the world to be most beneficial; for Dharma centers to get help with their finances, debts, and difficulties, and for every center to be of most benefit for the Buddha’s teaching, in particular, Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings; and to attain enlightenment as quickly as possible.

With much love and prayer...

Please read well the different lamrim texts such as Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, the Lamrim Chenmo, and the different lamrim texts that His Holiness the Dalai Lama has written on.

Try to actualize the realizations step by step. First, realize the gradual path of the lower capability being, then the gradual path of the middle capability being, and then the gradual path of the higher capability being. No matter how long it takes, meditate on and try to actualize this.

If you do this as much as you can, you will become more pure and more experienced, and then you can better teach others. Your benefit becomes greater. Otherwise, even if you are a scholar, your teachings are only empty words. Like a husk, they will be empty inside. They will have no weight, and people will not be inspired by them to practice.

My dear Keith,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I am sorry for the delay.

When you hear the Buddhadharma, teachings, and when you practice, if you feel it is very familiar and easy, then it means you met the Buddhadharma in the past. You can tell from that experience. It is proved from that experience.

If you want to achieve liberation and enlightenment, there is no other way but to practice the Four Noble Truths taught by the Buddha. You have to learn the Four Noble Truths by actualizing the two paths and the cessation of suffering. That is how you totally remove from suffering forever, because you have removed the cause of suffering completely, including the seed imprint. This is not taught in any other religions – Hinduism, Islam, or Christianity. Then, if you want to help sentient beings—liberate and enlighten them—you need to learn the whole Mahayana path, to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings.

Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers...

Dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. Sorry it took eons to reply.

You are very fortunate to have met the Buddhadharma and even more than that you are extremely fortunate to be able to practice, because the Buddhadharma is the only complete path to remove the suffering of the cycle of death and rebirth and all the sufferings in between. It is the only complete path to purify all negative karma and its causes—karma. It is the complete path to achieve full enlightenment by eliminating all the subtle defilements, and to be able to enlighten all sentient beings. So, you are extremely fortunate.

Your main practice should be lamrim. Try to have realizations of the Three Principles of the Path, on the basis of guru devotion. So that you can be successful, I am sending you some preliminary practices to do. You can do one preliminary practice a little each day while you are working and sometimes you can do a semi-retreat for a weekend or 10 days and do preliminary practices combined with lamrim. It is very good also to do deity retreat sometimes, combined with lamrim.

Please continue to practice Guru Shakyamuni Buddha meditation every day, and combine the lamrim meditations on the basis of that, using a lamrim text such as Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. Then, before going to sleep, please practice Vajrasattva using the four powers.

If you are able to read the King of Prayers each night, which is the extensive dedication prayer, that would be very good. If you can’t recite it every day, then read it when you have time.

Please make your life most meaningful with the thought of bodhicitta.

You can do the following preliminary practices:

• 300,000 prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas
• 300,000 mandala offerings
• 50,000 water bowl offerings
• 5,000 tsa tsas
• 700,000 OM MANI PADME HUM recitations

Please meditate for three months on the lower path, four months on the middle path, five months on bodhicitta, and five months on emptiness.

With much love and prayers...

The most important thing you can do in your life is to practice the lamrim; that’s the most important thing to focus on. But that doesn’t mean only practicing meditation.

Your lamrim practice should be based upon devoting yourself correctly to your virtuous friend, who is the most important person in your life. Proper guru devotion is more important than anything else. On the basis of this you can receive all the realizations of the path and complete enlightenment; without guru devotion or practicing it incorrectly will create only obstacles and suffering.

Training your mind step-by-step in the three principal aspects of the path and later, if you can, secret mantra, is like building an inner stupa, or an inner buddha statue.

However, those, yourself included, who can’t meditate or concentrate—especially those who don’t meditate on the path, who don’t know Dharma or know it only intellectually, who are unable to generate pure motivation before engaging in daily life activities, or who when doing their daily prayers and practices spend less time on that than anything else—should build holy objects. (The amount of time we spend on activities like eating, watching TV, sleeping and so forth, which we do so well, is much greater than the time we put into our Dharma practice.) Building holy objects is a very powerful way for such people to accumulate much merit and purify many obscurations and gives them and unbelievable opportunity to gain realizations of the path and attain liberation and enlightenment.

Since the opportunity to create virtue and good karma, the cause of even temporary happiness, is extremely rare, those who don’t know any prayers or who don’t put the prayers they know into practice should keep in mind as purely as possible that building holy objects such as stupas, buddha statues and prayer wheels is a very powerful form of practice. Finally, if you build a buddha statue, it should be incredibly beautiful and inspiring.

My very dear Jim,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. Sorry for the long delay in replying.

It is best if you can meditate daily practicing Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga, as well as reciting one lamrim prayer each day.

Lamrim is what you should focus on your whole life, even while you are working. This is what you should keep in your mind. It is the most meaningful, profound practice, especially keeping the mind in bodhicitta, performing each action with your mind in bodhicitta. This should be your practice; this is what you should try to accomplish in this life, it is very important.

The main purpose of having a human life is to benefit sentient beings, to free others from suffering, to eliminate the causes of suffering – karma and delusion, and to bring all beings to full enlightenment, the peerless happiness. To do this you have to actualize the path first.

My advice to you is to please study the book Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand by reading a little every day, a page, or more or less, to study and meditate on each part that you read, and to read the whole book from beginning to end.

Whatever parts you do not understand, or if you have any questions, then write them down in a note book, and then when you meet a more experienced student or a geshe, someone who knows the lamrim quite well, you can ask those questions.

So, train the mind in lamrim, meditate on the lamrim every day, whatever you can do, even while you are working. First, train the mind in the graduated path common to the lower capable being, then in the graduated path common to the middle capable being, then in the graduated path common to the higher capable being: bodhicitta, and then in emptiness. Keep meditating like this until you have stable realizations.

Later, you can take tantric initiations and practice the two stages of tantra.

In this way use every second of your life to train in the lamrim.

With much love and prayers...