Heavy Life Obstacles

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind email. According to my observation, you have very heavy obstacles to your life. This is not just referring to sickness, but death. It is a question of life and death, according to my observation.

I checked what needs to be done to change this karma.

On the next Tibetan eighth, you need to have a White Tara thangka painted and finished on the same day. It can just be a rough painting, and the extra details can be done the next day, if it’s not finished on the first day. It also has to be blessed on the same day as it is painted. This is an extremely powerful practice to prolong the life. 

I will recite the Amitayus long-life sutra for you right away.

If you can, come to India and go around the Bodhgaya Stupa. That is very important for purification. Visualize beams are emitted from stupa, which represents the Buddha’s holy mind. Beams are emitted and purify all the negative karma collected from beginningless rebirth, as well as all the delusions—mainly yours, but also for all sentient beings. Circumambulate with that mindfulness. Of course, begin with bodhicitta and circumambulate with that mindfulness.

You can recite mantras while going around the stupa:

CHOM DÄN DÄ DE ZHIN SHEG PA DRA CHOM PA YANG DAG PAR DZOG PÄI SANG GYÄ RIN CHHEN GYÄL TSHÄN LA CHHAG TSHÄL LO (7 x)

To Bhagavan, Tathagata, Arhat, Perfectly Complete Buddha, Precious Victory Banner, I prostrate.

Then for the rest of time recite:

LA MA TÖN PA CHOM DÄN DÄ DE ZHIN SHEG PA DRA CHOM PA YANG DAG PAR DZOG PÄI SANG GYÄ PÄL GYÄL WA SHA KYA THUB PA LA CHHAG TSHÄL LO

To Guru, Teacher, Bhagavan, Tathagata, Arhat, Perfectly Complete Buddha, Glorious Conqueror Sakyamuni, I prostrate.

OṂ NAMO DAŚADIK TRIKĀLA SARVA RATNA TRAYĀYA / NAMAḤ PRADAKṢĀ SUPRADAKṢĀ SARVA PĀPAṂ VIŚODHANI SVĀHĀ

See also this advice about the motivation for circumambulation and the benefits of circumambulation.

Practice Advice

• Every morning: It’s very important for you to do the morning motivation, How to Make My Lives Wish-Fulfilling: The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness, and also Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga. [You can find links to these practices in the FPMT Catalogue.]

• Refuge recitations: 4,000 times

• Mandala offering: 3,000 times

• Dorje Khadro Burning Offering mantras: 200,000 times

• Nyung nä retreats: Try to do two nyung näs each month. That would be unbelievable for you; it is very important. 

The nyung nä is a two-day retreat. On the first day, you can only have white food (no meat, no garlic etc.,) so you abandon black food and eat only white food, for example, yogurt, butter, milk and rice. It can be rice mixed with yogurt—that is very nice to eat—and basically any other food that is not a black food, so vegetables, bread, flour, etc.

On the first day, you can have one meal, so eat enough, and make sure you finish before 12 or by 1 pm if measured by the sun, like in ancient times. If measured by the clock, then it’s 12 noon. After that, no food is allowed. You are fasting, but you can have black tea or juice, without pulp. The juice must be like water, very light; if there is pulp then it is not fasting, so it needs to be like clear water. 

Then the next day you can’t have any food—you are fasting completely—and you can’t have water [or any fluids] on that day. You are also in silence. So, you are abiding in retreat with body, speech and mind.

Try to maintain mindfulness, keeping your mind in virtue as much as you can, with compassion for sentient beings, devotion to Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, or renunciation of samsara, emptiness, and bodhicitta. Do everything—the meditation, prostrations, etc.,—with this mind. For the first round of prostrations you are reciting the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas and the second round of prostrations is to Chenrezig. Do everything with bodhicitta motivation, including all the practices, like taking the eight Mahayana precepts, etc. 

On the third day, early in the morning, when dawn starts, when white light starts appearing in the east, at the beginning of the day, then you can free the speech (you can speak), as well as drink tea and have food. There are different systems regarding when you eat the food. It can be within the session or after the last session. On the third day, the last session is just a short one. You don’t have to do a long number of prostrations, so it is a much shorter session. 

That is one nyung nä. This is extremely powerful to purify the negative karma collected since beginningless rebirths. Take the eight Mahayana precepts with bodhicitta and recite each mantra with bodhicitta. 

This helps us develop bodhicitta, and it’s the quickest way to be reborn in a pure land. Once we are born there we are never ever reborn in the lower realms. Nyung näs particularly help us develop compassion to sentient beings.

Doing Chenrezig meditation and nyung näs help us to achieve enlightenment quickly. We develop compassion and it’s a quick way to achieve enlightenment.
 
Please also read my advice on how to meditate on the lamrim, in order to gain effortful lamrim experience.  

The main lamrim for you to use is Essence of Refined Gold. This doesn’t mean you can’t read other lamrim texts, definitely you can do that, such as Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. But for you, the main lamrim is Essence of Refined Gold, and for your actual lamrim meditations you can use the outline from this text.

Please study this from the beginning to end, and anything that you don’t understand you can write down in a book (or highlight) and later when you are with a geshe or student who has studied the lamrim well, you can ask them.