Advice on Practices for Life

My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. Your inspiration to practice Dharma is the most important thing in your life. Without Dharma there is no happiness, and there is no question that you can't achieve enlightenment. You can't liberate sentient beings from all the sufferings and causes and bring them to enlightenment. You can't even achieve for yourself total liberation from samsara. All the happiness of future lives has to come from Dharma because it comes from past good karma, that which is Dharma. So, without Dharma one can’t have any success in this life: success in business, marriage, or any happiness you want.

So, the best thing to help others is Dharma, and the best thing to help oneself is Dharma. Among the best, most important, things in this life is to meditate on the lamrim and to have realizations—to complete the path to enlightenment and to make yourself fully qualified to liberate numberless sentient beings who are obscured and suffering and to bring them to peerless happiness and full enlightenment.

That is what makes life most productive—you begin the path, complete the path, and finish your Dharma practice. You don't need to practice forever, whereas the works of this life and samsara are endless. No matter how much you suffer and bear hardships for samsaric pleasures (temporary pleasures), there is no end.

First study the whole lamrim. Then, each day, practice one meditation, following the graduated path. Do that for maybe one year. When you have finished, start all over again. After the first year, try to meditate on each topic, one by one, until you have realizations.

Meditate on guru devotion every day in the morning, then after that, if one has time, in the morning or any time, then practice one lamrim meditation starting with perfect human rebirth. Also, do some meditation on emptiness every day. For the rest of the day, when you are away from actual seated meditation, which means your working life, then continue without removing the mind from the topic, whether impermanence, compassion, guru devotion, or emptiness. Whether it is your meditation session or working life, do everything with a bodhicitta motivation.

Your deity to achieve enlightenment quickest is Guhyasamaja. This is a Maha-anuttara Yoga Tantra deity. So, some time later, you can take the initiation when it comes around and read the commentary, practice meditation on the whole tantric path, and also do the retreat. That enables you to achieve enlightenment quickest!

Please study well these instructions. Then you will understand well how to follow the path.

With much love and prayers,
Lama Zopa

Please make your life most beneficial with bodhicitta.

My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. Sorry for the long delay in replying. Please find attached my advice for your whole life.

For you, it comes out generally very good to study, meaning to study philosophy. Next, it comes out best to do retreat, so try to do some retreat each year. This is besides meditation on the lamrim while you are studying the Dharma and also working. All the time, meditate on the lamrim.

Regarding the lamrim meditation (see details in the sheets), please read my instructions well on how to do the preliminary practices effectively. I am giving you a list of practices for you to carry on with for your life. If you live for a billion years or even one year, this is how you can make your life very useful and beneficial.

Because one of your main practices is tonglen and the four immeasurables, it would be very good to take the Great Chenrezig initiation.

Regarding tantra, the main deity for you to practice to achieve enlightenment quickly, so sentient beings don’t have to suffer for a long time and so you can liberate sentient beings as quickly as possible, is Secret Vajrapani. When the opportunity comes, you can take the initiation, and then you can study the commentaries, do the retreat, and meditate on the path, but you do need a very strong practice of the lamrim. Therefore, you need to study the lamrim from beginning to end.

Then, the preliminary practices I have suggested are to purify your mind and for you to collect extensive merits and plant the seed of enlightenment, the whole path. These instructions are given to you so you know what to do with your life. It is not just preliminary practices, but to meditate on the lamrim, and then your deity for your quickest enlightenment. So, here is the whole guidance.

Then, please do Lama Tsongkhapa practice every day, Vajrasattva practice at night, recite the Golden Light Sutra however much you can – one line a day, one page, or more, then do prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas. If you can, according to your time, you can do the prostrations one time through (35 prostrations) or three times through (100 prostrations). This means you recite the names while you are prostrating. If you have physical difficulties then you can do less, or if you can’t prostrate then you can place your palms in the mudra of prostration and visualize the numberless 35 Buddhas, as well as numberless Buddhas, and then visualize that you are prostrating, covering the whole ground, or visualize billions of you prostrating, or that your body is giant so that it covers the whole ground.

Recite the names verbally with your hands in the mudra of prostration. In this way, so many eons of negative karma are purified, even just by reciting the names. This is unbelievably important and the most urgent thing, to stop rebirth in the lower realms and to take higher rebirths, so that one can practice Dharma, and so that one’s mind continues on the path, for sentient beings.

Please practice as much as you can. Life is not long, the nature of this life is impermanent, and death can happen at any time. This is the foundation of Buddha’s teachings, and this was the last advice Buddha gave, before showing the aspect of passing away.

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

With much love and prayers... 

Dear Lesley,
Sorry for the very long delay in replying to your letter. Please find enclosed instructions on how to do the different practices and the specific practices that came out best for your quickest enlightenment.

Please study the Dharma well and, at the same time, do the meditations on the lamrim. The main one is to have a realization of bodhicitta in this life, and before that, renunciation.

First, check your present level of mind, if you have any realizations of the lamrim, then do the next step of the lamrim. If you don’t have realizations, then start from the beginning: guru devotion, renunciation of this life, perfect human rebirth, bodhicitta, and emptiness.

Then as a basis for planting the seed of the whole path to enlightenment in one’s mind, every day recite one complete lamrim prayer, such as the Foundation of All Good Qualities or Lama Tsongkhapa’s Hymns of Experience, any lamrim prayer. Also, recite one completion stage prayer every day, this is often found in the long sadhana of your main deity, at the end, where there is a prayer that goes through the stages of the path. This way, every day, you are leaving imprints of the whole path. This is extremely important to do every day because this plants seeds every day.

Then, whatever you do, as much as possible do it with bodhicitta.

With much love and prayers,
Lama Zopa

• Prostrations: 100,000, reciting the 35 Buddhas' names
• Mandala offerings: 300,000
• Vajrasattva: at night, 21 long mantras, with practice
• Guru Yoga: If possible, every day, it could be Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga or Lama Chöpa, if you have time
• Diamond Cutter Sutra: 20,000

This is unbelievable purification practice. Doing this practice you collect incredible amounts of merit, limitless. This is such a quick way to realize emptiness, to be liberated from samsara, to liberate numberless sentient beings from all the sufferings and their causes, and to bring them to enlightenment. This is something that you should be most unbelievably happy to do, and do all the recitations with the thought of bodhicitta, the thought of benefiting all sentient beings. Also, if you can dedicate to all the projects of the FPMT, this would be very helpful. Also, this practice helps very much to pacify all the obstacles to your studies and all the obstacles to attaining the path to enlightenment.