Broken Vows and Commitments

My very dear Jenny,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I was happy that my last letter gave you inspiration, direction in life, energy, and faith. I’m very impressed, it touched my heart. Your practice remembering the guru in your everyday activities while cleaning, cooking, gardening, even taking care of the family, and doing yoga—that is exactly how one should practice.

When you offer a mandala, you offer not only your belongings but also your own body, speech, and mind to the guru. So, everything is offered to the guru. It is the same for eating, sleeping, washing—everything is practice—then you will have realizations 24 hours a day, stable realizations. You see the guru Buddha by training the mind, looking at it, and studying quotations and reasonings from the Buddha. Every day you live life to fulfill the holy wishes, even breathing in and out, taking care of oneself, keeping the body healthy, all of this. Not only that, but for those who have strong guru devotion, cherishing the guru more than one’s own life, with realizations of the kindness of the guru, every appearance is an appearance of the guru. Of course, good things happen, but anything besides that is purified by the guru’s blessings. This makes you realize how samsara is empty and inspires you to develop on the path.

With guru yoga practice and experiences, your heart is filled with joy and satisfaction and fulfillment. This way you definitely receive constant blessings from the guru and then from that receive realizations of the path—it is so easy like that. Such a practitioner is able to achieve enlightenment in this life, to actualize the three principal paths in this life and the two stages, and to achieve enlightenment even in one brief lifetime in these degenerate times.

For example, the bodhisattva “Always Crying One” (Tartu Ngon) did not practice tantra, just followed the sutra Paramita path, but he cherished his guru more than his life. In order for dust not to rise up and bother his guru, and because there was no water nearby, he let blood from his body spill onto the ground to dampen the dust. During the years when bodhisattva Chöpa was in retreat in the temple, Bodhisattva Always Crying One cleaned outside the monastery. In the Paramita path you have to collect three countless great eons of merit in order to achieve enlightenment, but Bodhisattva Always Crying One was able to complete the first countless great eon of merit within seven years because he cherished his guru more than his own life.

It is great what you are able to practice. Also, I am very impressed by your getting up very early in the morning to do daily practice. That is the best thing to do, and it is good to continue. Then you have more time in the day for other things, practices or whatever. Many Tibetans, monks, and lay people practice in the very early morning and finish before they do other things. If you can keep doing that, it would be extremely good. Otherwise, we are so busy during the day that we cannot take time for practice.

I understand you are very earnest, thinking you won’t be able to keep the commitments that you have taken from initiations, but I would like to advise you that life is very short, especially now in degenerate times, there are many more new diseases, so many conditions for death, obstacles to life, and death can happen any day, at any moment.

Tantric teachings do not exist in every human world—the east, west, and north human worlds. Only the southern continent has the tantric teachings. Even in the pure land, such as Amitabha pure land, some gurus say there are no tantric teachings. Bodhisattvas pray to be born here in the southern continent, practice tantric teachings, and then achieve enlightenment.

We can’t really say if you will have the opportunity to practice Dharma in the next life. Even just whether you will be a human being in the next life is extremely difficult to say. Just like me, in even one day, one hour, our actions are more non-virtuous than virtuous. For us, even when practicing Dharma for one hour, the motivation, even if it is not anger, is normally attachment to this life, and that grasping mind is non-virtue. So any action you do, even reciting prayers, eating walking, sitting, sleeping, doing a job—all this is non-virtue. You can see how difficult it is to be a human being in the next life. We need to practice good karma, virtue, particularly pure morality, so therefore it is better to take this opportunity. We need to know how rare it is to meet the teachings, and the incredible benefits.

Even if you complete the five powerful bhumis by practicing the path of sutra, before you achieve enlightenment you need to receive initiations and actualize the clear light. With the methods to actualize clear light, that mind becomes the direct cause for the Dharmakaya. At the end you need to achieve enlightenment by practicing tantra.

By only practicing the paramitayana path, you have to collect the three countless great eons of merit. That means it takes a long, long time to achieve enlightenment, and so sentient beings have to suffer for a long, long time; they are depending on you, so that is the problem. By practicing tantra, even the lower tantras, then you are able to achieve enlightenment in one life without the need to collect merit for three countless great eons. You are able to complete all those merits within one life, even by practicing the lower tantras. By practicing highest tantra you are able to complete all those merits within a few numbers of years by achieving the illusory body. You are able to achieve enlightenment. Highest tantra has the skilful means to eliminate the gross mind and actualize the extremely subtle mind. It is like an atomic bomb eliminating the defilements, the dualistic view. That is why by practicing highest tantra one can achieve enlightenment in one lifetime—it is the quickest path. There are tantric teachings still existing, which have not degenerated, in this world, and which are experienced not only in the monasteries, but by great high lamas. They are existing through their experiences; the complete teachings are existing, transmitted from Buddha through Lama Tsongkhapa and all those enlightened beings up to present gurus and masters. So you are incredibly fortunate to be able to take initiations and to practice, putting in all your effort so that sentient beings who rely on you can be liberated and freed from oceans of sufferings and brought to enlightenment.

In this fortunate eon there are 1,000 buddhas. Three of the buddhas did not teach tantra in this world. This is the first time that has happened—Shakyamuni Buddha taught the tantra teachings. Maitreya Buddha will not teach tantra. The seventh Buddha, a manifestation of Lama Tsongkhapa, will teach tantra, then the rest of the Buddhas won’t teach tantra, other than the last one, who promised to reveal whatever the previous Buddhas taught, so it is assumed that the last Buddha will teach tantra. It is not that the other Buddhas do not know tantra, but that the sentient beings don’t have the karma to receive the tantric teachings. If we receive all this, it is extremely rare. So, we take the opportunity to receive tantric teachings.

Another point of view I am going to explain to you is how important it is to take initiations and to practice as well as one can. My guru His Holiness Zong Rinpoche, who was ex-abbot of Ganden monastery in Tibet, was a great pandit, a highly attained yogi, appearing as ordinary but in reality he was Heruka. He used to advise, when people said, “I can’t take tantric commitments because by taking tantric commitments then I’ll go to hell” and all these things, that by taking highest yoga tantra initiations, then even if you are born in the hell realms, you will receive a human rebirth after some time, and again meet tantric teachings because of having met them before. Then you will practice tantra and achieve enlightenment.

His Holiness Zong Rinpoche said that by not taking tantric teachings and practicing the lesser vehicle path, you will enter into the Hinayana path, where you achieve the state of an arhat. So a person who, for example, has taken the Guhyasamaja initiation, can be born in the hell realms, then born back in the human realm, then take tantric teachings and achieve enlightenment. All this can happen while another person is not taking tantric initiations and is practicing the Hinayana path. While that being is in the arhat state, the blissful state of peace for oneself, for an incredible number of eons, they get stuck and absorbed in that. The other person takes the Guhyasamaja initiation, is born as a human, meets the tantric teachings, practices, and achieves enlightenment. Rinpoche used to compare them. So, even one practice of Guhyasamaja is so beneficial.

You said in your letter that you find it difficult to practice at home. Maybe that is because you are not getting inspired when you do prayers because maybe you are not meditating. When you don’t meditate, you don’t get inspired and it becomes like a ritual, like mere “blah blah blah.” You need to meditate when you recite the prayers, but also you need to know the meaning of the prayers. If you don’t know the meaning of the prayers then it becomes difficult, and there is no interest. There is a big difference between just reciting the prayer and reciting the prayer with meditation. One is alive, one is dead. I notice the difference myself sometimes when somebody leads prayers without meditation.

The other thing is that it is difficult to practice at home because one thinks that other things are important in life, the pleasures of this life, worldly concerns, attachment. One can find many things to do at home, such as watching TV (I’m watching TV while I’m dictating this). Watching TV like that without thinking is not the best thing. Attachment to this life, grasping at this life’s pleasures, thinking that many things are important, means the practice is put off all the time. The activities of this life are more important than practicing Dharma, and that is how the practice doesn’t get done. It is missed out.

The other thing is lack of lamrim, lack of awareness of impermanence and death, especially death. Also, not thinking that this human body is so precious, that I have the 18 qualities, they are difficult to find again, and especially not reflecting on impermanence and death, that death can happen even today, any moment. When you don’t think of that, then attachment arises and this life’s pleasures become more important than Dharma practice, which causes all happiness, liberation from samsara, enlightenment, and being able to liberate countless sentient beings from oceans of samsaric sufferings.

When you don’t think of impermanence and death, that death can happen even today, at this moment, then attachment to this life arises. Then all the happiness of all future lives, liberation, enlightenment, and liberating countless sentient beings from oceans of suffering doesn’t happen. If this life is more important (and I don’t mean our very basic needs), pleasure becomes the most important thing. Due to a lack of thinking of Dharma, of impermanence and death, of the nature of the reality of life you are unable to practice Dharma.

There is no problem with practicing Padmasambhava. I make prayers to Padmasambhava. It is extremely important to pray every day to Padmasambhava for the removal of obstacles and for the success of your own Dharma practice, as well as for projects to benefit all sentient beings, especially if you are doing something for Tibet, projects in Tibet, making statues, building hospitals there, and so forth. Especially when things are related to helping the Tibetan people, you need a lot of prayers asking Padmasambhava to help. By the kindness of Padmasambhava, Tibet was purified and Dharma was spread in Tibet. And now Tibetan Buddhism has spread all over the world. If we have tens of thousands of people in the United States who follow the path to enlightenment, making their lives meaningful, that came from Padmasambhava who purified Tibet and pacified the obstacles to spreading Dharma in Tibet.

Your Deity to Achieve Enlightenment:
You can keep the Vajrayogini practice. Also, Cittamani Tara comes out well. Whichever you feel closer to, you can decide: Vajrayogini, Cittamani Tara, or Green Tara. For both Vajrayogini and Cittamani Tara you need to take another great initiation of another deity. Only then are you allowed to receive initiations of these deities and only then can you receive commentaries. The best preliminary for Vajrayogini or Tara Cittamani is Heruka, Guhyasamaja, or Hevajra.

Preliminary Practices:

• 10,000 refuge
• 100,000 mandala offerings
• 200,000 prostrations by reciting the 35 Buddhas
• Recite Diamond Cutter Sutra five times each month for six years
• Recite the Arya Sanghata Sutra 200 times

Reading these texts, such as the Sanghata Sutra, is an incredible way to collect merit. You collect much merit from hearing the Arya Sanghata Sutra.

Also, it is very important to do:

• Five months on the lamrim: on the lower path
• Five months: middle path
• Eight months: bodhicitta
• Five months: emptiness

Then you circle back and start again.

Thank you very much for all your sincere heart. I understand you need help, and the company of Sangha. It would be good if you have some friends, Sangha, to communicate with and practice with.

Much love and prayer...

Attending the teachings and being able to do Six-Session Guru Yoga—that’s great! Since you are sick, it’s understandable that you are not able to do the rest of your commitments. The fact that you are still able to do Six-Session Guru Yoga anyway covers much of your samaya commitments. Six-Session Guru Yoga is the essence of tantra.

My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I understand that you were unable to keep the pratimoksha vows many times. We are living in the West, where the objects of delusion are constantly advertised. Tibet, even though it has changed a lot, is still an inspiration for the Dharma. Tibet doesn’t inspire us much toward other delusions or desires. In most parts of Tibet, there are monasteries, caves, lamas, and yogis going through great hardships, sacrificing their lives to actualize the path to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings. Prayer naturally inspires renunciation there, and we don’t need so much effort to control delusion. Of course, there is also the blessing of the place, the environment, and the feelings attached to those. However, in the West, the objects of attachment, particularly the body, samsaric pleasure, pleasures of the body, such as sex, and so forth, are advertised. In such an environment, you are totally overwhelmed by delusion, it is like a great wave, and the dam is broken, and everything is covered by water. Our life is generally like that: totally overwhelmed by ignorance, the concept of true existence, and grasping at true existence. There is this huge hallucination of the true existence of appearances, which does not come from its own side, but is projected by our mind. This is due to the negative imprints left on our mental continuum by having wrong concepts and ignorance, holding things as truly existent, in the past. We are completely trapped by this.

On the basis of this hallucination, there are other delusions—attachment, anger, jealousy, pride, and many other things—84,000 delusions in total. All these wrong concepts are sickness of the mind. And each delusion has its own view, which is an hallucination, false. It is not like that in reality. These things are only projected by delusion. All the objects built by delusion are nonexistent. It’s like when you are dreaming—you win an election and become the president of the country, or you marry the person you like, you have children, and buy a new house. All these things are projected by the mind in the dream, but they don’t exist. When you wake up, they don’t exist. So, being in the West, where all the objects of delusion and desire are constantly advertised on TV and in the newspapers, the minute you open your eyes, that’s what you see; therefore, it becomes great challenge for you. External objects influence your mind.

If you are meditating on the lamrim, on mindfulness, emptiness, and dependent arising, looking at hallucination as hallucination, then, when desire arises, your mind is able to look at the object as having the nature of impermanence or of the deity, to think about the shortcomings of the object, and is able to control the object and the delusion. Delusion, the object of desire, is empty, and is under the control of your mind. It can’t influence you. Similarly, you can meditate on loving kindness and compassion, thinking of the object as empty, and, if the object is a person, how precious the person is, how all the person’s negative actions of body, speech, and mind are so precious, benefiting you, helping you to practice Dharma, meditate on the lamrim, develop compassion and patience, and bring you to enlightenment. Without changing your mind from self-cherishing thoughts to bodhicitta and cherishing others; from anger to loving kindness and patience; from desire to renunciation; without discovering the nature of suffering, you can’t achieve liberation and enlightenment. So, the person is supporting you, helping you to change your mind and practice the lamrim.

Practicing the lamrim and trying to live according to your vows is a billion times more victorious than winning the Olympics. You should always remember that. The Olympics is nothing. Even if you become famous in the world, it is nothing. If you haven’t defeated your delusions, you haven’t won the real battle.

My suggestion to you for purification practice is to perform 200,000 prostrations while reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names and the rest of the confession prayer, involving the remedy of the three powers, including regret, purifying your negative karma. Reciting the names of Buddha purifies the ripening aspect of the result, which is rebirth in the lower realms. Then, you make a vow to not commit these things again. While you are prostrating, you recite the same name over and over until you put your forehead on the ground. Then, you recite the next Buddha’s name until you put your forehead on the ground. After that, you can recite the last part of the prayer. Or, if you want to do more prostrations, you keep on reciting the same Buddha’s name over and over quickly for one prostration until you put your forehead on the ground. Then, after that, you chant the next name. You do that without reciting the last part of the prayer, the power of remedy, of regret for the negative karma, the power of restraint, and the power of the object. You also prostrate when you take refuge at the beginning.

If you have time, you can do a retreat for three days, seven days, or every weekend. You can prostrate at the beginning of a session, and then you can do lamrim meditation for the last half hour. If you cannot find the time to do that, it is OK. As far as retreat is concerned, integrating the preliminary practices with the lamrim is incredibly beneficial. So much negative karma is purified and merit is collected by the preliminaries, and this makes the lamrim meditation more effective, and realizations are actualized. The lamrim makes the preliminary practices more powerful, more pure, and the preliminary practices make the lamrim meditation stronger and more powerful. You can do about 300 prostrations every day, 100 three times a day. You can do more in the morning, and a little before going to bed, reciting the names with prostrations just one time. By reciting one name, there is the power to purify thousands of eons of negative karma. We have committed so many negative karmas in this life and past lives, from beginningless rebirths. You can see that this is terrifying.

Lama Tsongkhapa, before he went to sleep, always recited the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names with prostrations, which makes everything very pure, and you also have a very happy mind with which to go to sleep, with no regrets. He was a very pure monk. Then, the negative karma collected related to the guru is purified. One of the Thirty-five Buddhas is Tathagata Metog Päl, Glorious Flower; reciting his name once purifies 100,000 eons of negative karma.* You should do the prayer to multiply mantras at the beginning before you start the prostrations.

You should also recite the Vajrasattva mantra 70,000 times, also for purification. You can complete some of the mantras in a retreat, and then, if you do not finish them in the retreat, you can recite some every day, such as one mala or half a mala. You could do the Vajrasattva mantra recitation in the evenings. That purifies not only broken bodhisattva root vows, but also tantric root vows.

If you have taken a highest tantra initiation and have done the retreat, then you can practice that deity’s self-initiation by yourself. You can do the short version, and sometimes the middle-length or elaborate version of the self-initiation. You can also practice the long version with a group, which is more powerful.

When you are doing these purification practices, my advice is to feel in your heart as much as possible that you are doing them for others, to free all the hell beings, hungry ghosts, and animals from the most unimaginable suffering and bring them happiness. Remember that you are practicing for the benefit of all sentient beings. Otherwise, the motivation is too much concerned with one’s own mistakes, negative karma, and avoiding the hell realms. All of this involves the self too much, has a selfish motivation, since one does not have a realization of bodhicitta. Then, make a dedication to develop and actualize bodhicitta for oneself and sentient beings without the delay of a second, and that if it is generated, may it increase.

Here, you purify your past negative karma, but the question is, what if you commit it again? If you commit negative karma again, you have to purify it again, so there is no end to the practice of purification. The practice of purification becomes endless because one commits negative karma again and again. That is what most of us do. Therefore, a very important solution for happiness, not only temporary but ultimate liberation, especially for the happiness of all sentient beings, is to not commit it again, and live according to that vow. That is essential. You can take the five lay vows again and again, but that doesn’t mean you should break them again and again. Also, the bodhisattva vows can be taken again and again, and you should do this. When you practice self-initiation, you can take the bodhisattva vows. Restoring vows and purifying the path is part of self-initiation.

Therefore, one should try, as much as possible, to preserve one’s vows. Of course, the secondary vows are difficult, and you should try not to break them, but put a lot of effort into not breaking the root vows. The minute you break or degenerate your samaya, or collect any negative karma, the wise thing is to purify it immediately. Do not delay, because negative karma increases and multiplies. By the next day it has doubled. If you kill one tiny insect today, by the next day it has doubled, which means on the second day, you have killed two beings; on the third day, it doubles again, so you create the same negative karma as killing four beings; on the fourth day it multiplies to eight; on the fifth day to sixteen. So, it becomes very frightening. As you know, the great enlightened being Pabongka said that after 18 days, you will have created the same negative karma as killing a human being. So, when death comes, the negative karma will have multiplied to the number of atoms in the earth. This karma becomes so heavy in future lives and you have to suffer for so long in the lower realms. It is difficult to be born in the human realm. How can liberation and enlightenment be possible in this situation? Please keep this in mind.

If you are surrounded by strong Dharma practitioners, who are living according to samaya vows, then they can help you, inspire you to practice, and to live according to your vows. However, if you are surrounded by people who are behaving in the opposite way, then they can influence you easily, and you can become like them.

Live according to your precepts and vows. Abandon negative karma and engage in good karma. Sometimes it is useful to be in retreat or even to just be alone. This is useful for us ordinary beings who do not have stability in our minds, control of our minds, or do not have realizations.

Thank you very much. I hope this is enough advice for you.

With much love and prayer,

Lama Zopa

P.S. Keep in mind the lamrim—guru devotion, renunciation of samsara, and bodhicitta. These things help you to not commit negative karma again.

*Note: See Everlasting Rain of Nectar (Geshe Jampa Gyatso, Wisdom Publications, 1996), page 33: “Glorious Flower purifies all obscurations of body.”