General Practice Advice from Rinpoche

My most dear Julia,
Thank you very much for your beautiful, sincere, down-to-earth letter. You are practicing the most important things. I am very happy to hear from you, explaining what you have been doing, making your life meaningful, your awareness of life, that it is of an impermanent nature, and that you can’t delay practicing Dharma. It is also good to hear how the vows help you, give you a clear direction, make your life meaningful, and have helped you progress in your spiritual practice, how they help stop the distractions of the mind and enable you to put effort into what is most important.

I am extremely happy and surprised that you went to the website for my advice on daily practice and that your main emphasis is on guru devotion practice, meditation, and 35 Buddhas practice in the morning, Vajrasattva in the evening, also the 21 Taras practice, as well as Chenrezig and Medicine Buddha daily practice, and tonglen. On top of that, you are reciting the Sanghatasutra and Vajra Cutter Sutra. I think you will become a wish-fulfilling jewel for all sentient beings: for the numberless hell beings, whose suffering is so heavy that one second is like suffering for eons; the hungry ghosts, who do not find even a drop of water or morsel of food for hundreds of thousands of years; the animals, who have incredible suffering; and the human beings, who experience so much suffering in the world. By doing all this practice, you are becoming a wish-fulfilling jewel for all sentient beings. I am VERY, very impressed.

According to my observations, for your quickest enlightenment, your main deity practice is Most Secret Hayagriva. Other practices would also be good, like Guhyasamaja and Tara Cittamani. This means you can also take these initiations and can do some practice, but the main one is Hayagriva.

So, when the opportunity comes, you can take the Most Secret Hayagriva initiation. If you hear that I am giving this initiation, if you can manage, then you can come. Otherwise, you can take it nearby.

It would be quite good to practice shiné, and your focus should be on the Six Yogas of Naropa, on tum-mo, but there is no rush with that. At the moment, train your mind in guru devotion, the three principal paths, and then, afterward, do tantric practice—the tantric path of the two stages of generation and completion. You need an initiation for that.

Your preliminary practices are as follows:

• Dorje Khadro fire puja—7000
• Refuge—50,000
• Guru yoga—80,000
• Tsa-tsas—200,000 (Guru Shakyamuni Buddha)

You should also recite, at least once each week, the Diamond (Vajra) Cutter Sutra. This will bring incredible purification and you will collect vast amounts of merit. Your success will be based on this.

Lamrim Meditations:

• Five months—lower path
• Eight months—middle path
• Five months—bodhicitta
• Eleven months—emptiness

These topics will be your main focus for those months. Please study these. It doesn’t mean you can’t do other practices.

I think you are a very stable, good, and inspiring sentient being. Billions of thanks not only for your practice, but for your service to the Dharma center.

My very dear Sylvia,
Thank you very much for your kind letter.

I want to advise you to recite the Diamond Cutter Sutra seven times and to perform 100 prostrations every day, by reciting the 35 Buddhas names. Recite the rest of the confession prayer when you finish. That is best, because every day we create so much negative karma.

If you can, perform full-length prostrations, if you have space in the house or in your room. This would be incredible. When you travel long distances by plane or are sick and so forth, then I understand it is difficult to do these. Otherwise, you should try to do them.

This is actually an emergency because with all the negative karma that we have created from birth, and especially from beginningless rebirths, it is possible to experience the result—the terrifying lower realms—any minute, any time, the moment the breath stops.

The ultimate result is the achievement of liberation and enlightenment.
With big love and prayers...

My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I am sorry it took so long to reply. I checked what practices you can do:

•  Recite Lion-face Dakini mantra and short prayer.
•  Recite the Heart Sutra.
•  Do Guru Shakyamuni Buddha daily meditation.
•  Wear the protection liberating from bondage of body, speech, and mind, make sure that you don’t get it wet, so take it off when you shower.
•  Read any books by me, Lama Yeshe, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Lion-face Dakini mantra and short prayer is not your main practice, but this is for healing and to solve mental problems, also to protect you from harm from other beings that influence your mind and harm you. This comes from your negative karma and this is actually what is giving harm to you—your own delusions, the root of samsara: ignorance, not knowing what is the ultimate nature of the “I” and aggregates, and the self-cherishing thought. This is the main enemy that gives you all your problems, including AIDS; whatever problem one experiences comes from this.

Regarding the Heart Sutra—this comes from Buddha and is a conversation between Chenrezig and Shariputra. Shariputra asks questions and Chenrezig explains the answer through Buddha’s blessing. Reciting this leaves a good, positive imprint on your mind. The Heart Sutra is the heart of all of the Buddha’s teachings on the perfection of wisdom. This is Buddha’s most cherished teaching because it causes sentient beings to actualize the wisdom realizing emptiness, and this is the only thing that directly cuts the root of samsara: ignorance, which is the root of all sufferings and their causes: delusion and karma. The wisdom directly perceiving emptiness eliminates all the defilements, gross and subtle, so that one can achieve everlasting happiness and then full enlightenment. There is no other method that can directly eliminate all the gross and subtle defilements, only the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness.

Countless buddhas and bodhisattvas all came from this realization, that is why the perfection of wisdom is called the great method. There are different types of wisdom but this is not like the wisdom of how to fix a car or motorbike, this is the wisdom of the ultimate nature of phenomena—emptiness, the only truth. The omniscient mind, dharmakaya, the wisdom directly seeing the emptiness of all phenomena, non-dual wisdom—this is the ultimate wisdom.

The Perfection of Wisdom explains the whole path to enlightenment. Each time you read this it leaves positive imprints on your mind to realize the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness. In this way, you come to understand the meaning of the Perfection of Wisdom teachings.

By developing the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, one eliminates all the defilements, one is able to achieve liberation, full enlightenment, great liberation, and then be able to liberate so many sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering, liberating countless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, suras, and asuras, as well as bringing them to great liberation and full enlightenment.

Reading the Heart Sutra has all these advantages. This is what you receive on your mental continuum. We can’t imagine it. If you really understood it it would blow your mind, it would blow all sentient beings’ minds. It is a most inspiring, really fantastic practice. No matter how deep one’s sufferings are, that one is going through, by reading the Heart Sutra it brings the ultimate end to all your sufferings, it gives you the ultimate freedom and liberation because it eliminates the karma and delusions, so you don’t have to reincarnate any more—the circle of dying and rebirth and all the sufferings we experience in-between. So, you can see this practice is extremely powerful.

The other practice for you to do is the daily meditation of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha. This is what you can do each day—the Heart Sutra and Guru Shakyamuni daily meditation. Lion-face Dakini is mainly for purifying your obstacles.

What makes your life most meaningful every day is if you continue to try and live your life with the thought of benefiting others. Think that the purpose of your life is to free others from suffering and to bring them the cause of happiness, not only temporary happiness but ultimate happiness. This is the purpose of your life. Keep your mind in accord with this, and keep your attention on this. Always try to help others with your body, speech, and mind. This will give you the most satisfaction and fulfillment; this is what makes your life most happy. If this is your ultimate goal, it will cause enlightenment, the peerless happiness.

If you do the practice of Guru Shakyamuni daily meditation, recite the Heart Sutra, and live your life with a good heart, benefiting others every day, then when death comes you will be so happy, there will be nothing to be afraid of. You will feel so happy, and in this way you can be born in the pure land of Buddha and achieve enlightenment, or you can take a perfect human rebirth, meet the Dharma and Mahayana teachings, and achieve enlightenment.

With much love and prayers...

My very dear Jennifer,
Thank you very much for your incredible practice; it is really something to rejoice in. I hope that everyone in the whole world can practice like you, so full of energy for good things.

I checked more specifically what practice you should do. According to my observations these are the practices you should do:

• 100,000 guru yoga to Lama Tsongkhapa (which means actually reciting 100,000 Lama Tsongkhapa mantras)
• 1,000,000 mandala offerings
• 200,000 Samayavajra
• 10,000 Diamond Cutter Sutra recitations

In the near future you should plan to do a calm abiding retreat, practicing the nine stages of calm abiding. It would be very good for you to try and do that.

First, study Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, as well as the Lamrim Chenmo (the elaborated lamrim). It would be very good for you to read the entire Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand five times. Read it slowly, thinking of the meaning as much as you can—that in itself is meditation. Whatever you don’t finish, then start from there the next day. You can read it twice a day or whatever you can, it is completely up to you.

Please study well the Tibetan language; I hope one day you can help translate some texts. We need many good translators in order to translate the many different texts and sutras from Tibetan.

According to my observations, it would be very good for you to meditate and study philosophy and it also would be very good for you to do social service. So, sometimes you can meditate more, sometimes study more, and other times offer service.

Regarding your preliminary practices, reciting the Diamond Cutter Sutra and making mandala offerings are your main ones. This is a wonderful way to collect merit and purify karma. It also helps you to realize emptiness. It is very good if you can try to memorize the Diamond Cutter Sutra, then you can recite it while you are walking.

If you can memorize it, probably you will be the first person in the west to memorize this sutra. There is a student in Washington who works for Wal-Mart as a cashier who has started to memorize the Diamond Cutter Sutra. Also, she recites the Vajrasattva mantra while working in Wal-Mart. As you are learning Tibetan, you can also try to memorize the sutra in Tibetan.

So, first read Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand five times, then do meditation. Try to have realizations on the gradual path of the lower capable being, then the gradual path of the middle capable being, then try to have bodhicitta realizations, and then realizations on emptiness. Then, in the future, you can practice calm abiding, maybe for one year. This is something for which you can plan. After that, you can try to have realizations on the two stages of tantra: the generation and completion stage.

When you meditate on shiné (calm abiding), visualize yourself as the deity. This can be your basis for shiné. Before you try to practice this you need to study all the teachings on calm abiding. You can check in different texts, so that when you start meditating you know what to do when obstacles arise, etc.

Sometimes we don’t get the opportunity to meet again and again and discuss things, so here I am explaining your practice for some time, so you know what to do and know how to make your life most meaningful.
With much love and prayers...

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

I was very happy to read about your experience with reciting the Sanghata Sutra. I have heard of many miracles and amazing stories from people who have recited it. I am collecting these stories to make into a small, inspiring book. Some of our centers received large donations after students recited it more than 150 times, even the next day. All the stories are very inspiring.

Regarding your questions:

1) Regarding studying the “Foundation of Buddhist Thought,” according to my observations, it would be better for you to study in Holland.

Also, you could study the correspondence course for the basic program from Istituto Lama Tsongkhapa in Italy. Or if the geshe in Alicante in Spain, or at Atisha Center in Australia have a correspondence course, you could also follow these. I think only Italy actually has the correspondence course set up.

2) I checked regarding your special deity, and according to my observations for your quickest enlightenment, it comes out best for you to practice Tara Cittamani.

I was wondering, as you are an interpreter, whether you could maybe translate either the Sutra of Golden Light or the Sanghata Sutra? This is an incredible way to use your skill. If this is something you feel you can do, then please contact the director of the Education Department in the FPMT. She can help you to get the texts and also help to make them available as widely as possible after they are translated.

There are three volumes of the Sutra of Golden Light. Reading them brings great purification and one collects an incredible amount of merit. Also, it brings peace to the place where one reads it: the house, city, and even the country. Reading it is a great contribution to world peace. I am wondering if you could translate it into a language that is rare to find, like West African.

Regarding your practice, I checked what is most beneficial for your quickest enlightenment (see below). Please do prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas before you go to bed, as well as Vajrasattva practice. Also, if you are able, please practice Guru Puja each morning. As you read this practice you will develop all the realizations of the path.

There are some books regarding the benefits of doing Lama Chöpa (Guru Puja). Also, I have explained this during some retreats (Milarepa Center and Land of Medicine Buddha). It would be very good if you can read about some of the benefits.

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

With much love and prayers,
Lama Zopa

Practices Rinpoche suggested:

• Refuge: 300,000
• Prostrations: 300,000 to the Thirty-five Buddhas
• Vajrasattva: Before going to bed each night
• Dorje Khadro (burning offering): 400,000
• Guru Yoga: If you can, practice Guru Puja in the morning
• Lamrim Meditations:
  • Guru Devotion: Two months
  • Graduated path common to the lower capable being: Eight months
  • Graduated path common to the middle capable being: Three months
  • Graduated path common to the higher capable being: Bodhicitta 6 months
  • Emptiness: Seven months

My very dear Robert,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. Sorry it took a long time to reply.

I checked which practices you should do for your quickest enlightenment. These are practices for you to do for your whole life.

If you haven’t already received instructions in the past about your personal deity, I have checked about this. For your quickest enlightenment it comes out best to practice Guhyasamaja. Later you can receive the initiation. First you need to go over the lamrim teachings. This is a guideline for your whole life: the main practice is lamrim.

You can even meditate on the lamrim during your working life, for instance working with the thought of bodhicitta. So, for a few months (see below), try to focus on that subject of the lamrim even during the day, when you are driving, working, eating, etc., so that the lamrim is integrated into your life.

Reciting the Sutra of Golden Light has incredible benefits, bringing success in achieving the whole path, so that you can enlighten sentient beings. If you become enlightened quickly it means you can liberate so many sentient beings from samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment more quickly. Also, reciting this sutra contributes to world peace and happiness in the country where you live, so this is an incredible contribution for world peace.

With much love and prayers,
Lama Zopa

Practices Given:

•  Prostrations: 6,000 to the Thirty-five Buddhas
•  Samaya Vajra: 400,000
•  Guru Yoga : 9,000 to Lama Tsongkhapa
•  Tsa-tsas Deity: 200,000 divided between the following deities:
  •  Chenrezig, Manjrushri, and Vajrapani (the essence of all Buddha’s compassion, wisdom and power)
  •  Lama Tsongkhapa
  •  Heruka (most of the tsa-tsas should be of this deity)
  •  Vajrayogini
  •  Mitukpa (most of the tsa-tsas should be of this deity)

You can give tsa-tsas to people as a gift for their altar. They can be placed in lines high up on walls, i.e. just below the ceiling, then small lights can be offered under each tsa-tsa. They can also be put in large statues or in stupas as relics. They can be put on mountains, in respected places, with protection from the weather, i.e. in a cave or similar. If a local Dharma center has a tsa-tsa house, which is a simple stupa, they can be put inside this.

•  Sanghata Sutra recitations: 110 recitations
•  Sutra of Golden Light: Recite three times each month for the rest of your life
•  Lamrim Meditations:
  • Guru Devotion: Two months
  • Graduated path common to the lower capable being: Four months
  • Graduated path common to the middle capable being: Six months
  • Graduated path common to the higher capable being: Bodhicitta: Seven months
  • Emptiness: Four months

Work through these meditations repeatedly until you achieve stable realizations. Also, it doesn’t mean you only meditate on each subject for this amount of time. It means that this is your main focus for those months. Even when you are doing a deity retreat you still can do the lamrim meditation as a motivation, or you can do it during mantra recitation.