Two Thousand Nyung Näs and Other Life Practices

Practices

• 2,000 refuge
• 400,000 tonglen. The main thing is to do the meditation.
• 10,000 mandala offerings

It didn’t come out for you to do many preliminaries, which is very unusual. But it came out that your main practice is nyung nä and that you should do around two thousand nyung näs. Geshe Lama Konchog did one thousand nyung näs, but there was one great lama who was a lharumpa geshe, which is like a professor, from Drepung Monastery in Tibet. He took initiations from lamas of other traditions and benefited unbelievably the sentient beings in the Himalayan regions. He made a law for people not to kill animals and in many places, like Tsum, this is still kept. Then he organized the recitation of 100 million OM MANI PADME HUM mantras in many places. Unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable. He himself did one thousand nyung näs and he had a disciple who did two thousand nyung näs.

Doing nyung nä is the way to save yourself from being born in the lower realms. It’s the quick way to get enlightened for sentient beings and the quick way to free all sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment. So, generally you should aim to do two thousand nyung näs, but don’t worry, do as many as you can your whole life. That means Chenrezig practice.

It’s an unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable practice. By doing just one nyung nä well, you are liberated from the lower realms. In Swayambhunath, Nepal, there is one monastery where they do eight nyung näs all the time on special days. There are many old mothers who join the nyung näs. They don’t do hundreds of nyung näs, just a few, but by that they are completely freed from the fear of death. They can tell the Rinpoche at that monastery when they are going to die and at exactly that time they pass away. It’s really amazing. One lady told Rinpoche when she was going to pass away and the lama did puja for her. An hour before she was going to pass, she was still walking around and doing things so Rinpoche thought that it may not be true what she had said. Then she sat down and asked Rinpoche for prayers and passed away in meditation. This is not ancient news; it’s a present-day story. It happened just a few years ago.

LamRim: Effortful Realization

The main lamrim you should study is Lama Tsongkhapa’s Middle-Length Lamrim. Of course, Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand is good, but the main one for you is the Middle-Length Lamrim. Best is to read it a few times first and study it well, then use it for your meditation.

• One month: guru devotion
• Two months: lower path
• Four months: middle path
• Eleven months: bodhicitta
• Two months: emptiness

After the effortful experience, try to get the effortless experience, no matter how many months or years it takes. Go back through the lamrim, starting from guru devotion, then up through the lower path, middle path, higher path.

The two months’ meditation on emptiness is for effortful experience but emptiness is something you have to meditate on every day using the Heart Sutra, the Four Analyses or even just one verse or one stanza on emptiness.

After generating bodhicitta, put more emphasis on tantra—generation and completion stage.

At least every day, for realizations of the path, for enlightenment and to enlighten all sentient beings, the minimum practice is to recite a lamrim prayer and do direct meditation on the lamrim. Also, recite your own deity’s graduated path (the prayer is at the end of the long sadhana of the deity.) You must at least do these two as a minimum practice.

Yidam

Your Highest Yoga Tantra deity is Guhyasamaja, but your deity can also be Chenrezig because you are doing many, many nyung näs . However, to achieve enlightenment quickest you need to have the imprint of Highest Yoga Tantra, so you can take the initiation of Guhyasamaja and do the nearing retreat.