Lamrim Retreat

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
How are you? Thank you very much for the letter and the information. It is very good, whichever language you use, the English or French translation. And Geshe Sopa’s [text] is excellent, as it will expand your wisdom and compassion, not to expand the words but to actualize their meaning.

I am very happy. For the mistakes that happened, you confessed them. That makes you unbelievably free and is the way to achieve liberation and enlightenment.

First read the whole lamrim three times, with study. The things you don’t know or understand, write them down, then ask a geshe or Sangha member who has good knowledge. 

Study the text three times from the beginning to the end and each time you will learn new things. It is said that if we read the Lamrim Chenmo nine times, then nine times we will learn new things.

For four months, meditate on following the virtuous friend correctly by following the outlines. For one week meditate on the benefits, then one week on the shortcomings, and continue like this for the four basic outlines. Circle over these for the four months.

Then for four months, meditate on renunciation, following the lower and middle capable beings’ paths: renouncing this life, looking at the defects of samsara and of future lives. 

Then spend four months on bodhicitta, followed by four months meditating on emptiness.

Do like that five times, the whole thing.

After that, train in perfectly following the virtuous friend effortlessly (before it was effortful) until you have a stable realization, until you see numberless past, present and future buddhas are the guru and all their actions are pure, especially seeing mistaken actions appearing as every single buddha’s actions. Meditate until you have stable realizations.

If you can, doing the same days, before bodhicitta, we need renunciation, the path of the lower capable being, no matter how many months or years it takes. Then the path of the middle capable being and then the graduated path of the higher capable being, bodhicitta, of which there are two techniques. Use whichever one is more effective for you.

Then emptiness, which should be done from now. Do some meditation on emptiness every day, reciting the Heart Sutra or quotations relating to emptiness. Something like that.

First thing in the morning follow the morning motivation, which transforms the mind into Dharma and into bodhicitta. Then blessing the speech.

Then you can do Lama Chöpa. You don’t need to chant, just recite the prayer and do the meditations. If not, do Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga. [Find links to practice materials in the FPMT Catalogue.]

In the evening, at the end of the protector prayers, do the King of Prayers, then it’s so easy to be reborn in the pure land, because you are doing it for all sentient beings, even the ants and mosquitoes that non-Buddhists kill or boil in hot water and eat, like frogs and lobsters.

One thing, whichever your deity is, by reciting the whole path to enlightenment prayer, you leave that positive imprint on your mind.

Every day, morning or evening, do prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas, then Vajrasattva, one (or so) malas or at least twenty-one times, at least with the four opponent powers, making it a perfect confession.

Each month, do self-initiation. There are elaborate, middle and short versions. I am not sure if you have it in English. I doubt it. There is a short version in English. Many Sangha have it and it’s done in Lama Chöpa. My Guru Trijang Rinpoche wrote it. The four initiations are the common one, whereas I’m talking about the uncommon one, not in the prayer.

The other thing, if you have done retreat with fire puja, you can do self-initiation. Then twice each month, on the tsog days, you can do any of the initiations. Those who can, can do the short or the middle one. That makes your life most practical, useful and beneficial, and it is easy to be free of samsara and liberated.

I want to express my billion, million, trillion thanks for building the center. I didn’t get to thank you before. You got to do that by the grace of the Three Rare Sublime Ones. You got help from them for you, one person. And you dedicated your life to the Sangha, so now they can enjoy with one thousand buddhas.

What you did helps many Sangha, even though I didn’t get to contact you much. And it is for all sentient beings.

That’s all!

Thank you very much.

With love and prayers ...

To my dear friends at Lawudo,

Thank you billions of times. Life is very short, so what you are doing, meditating on lamrim, is the very best thing to do. It’s the best way to use your life.

Samsara is the most suffering life. [We have] attachment to this life and the big one on top of that is the ignorance grasping at a truly existent I.

I am sure you have done this retreat with a good motivation for the benefit of all sentient beings—the leeches, mosquitoes, etc—for all of them. A billion thanks to Robina for organizing that retreat.

I am at Maratika where Guru Rinpoche attained immortal life by achieving Amitayus.

With love and prayers ...

My most dear, most kind, most precious, most wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind email. I read it all. How you feel, like when you are about to finish, that you feel just like you are starting retreat, that is also how I feel. It’s very good that you are happy to purify sentient beings.

Your aversion to the president changed, so that is a very good sign, the benefit of retreat. Thank you very much for doing the long-life prayer every day.

You didn’t think logically regarding your mother passing—that no one would love you as much as she did. There are numberless bodhisattvas who love you; they love you a thousand times more than you love yourself. Every second they cherish you more than their own life; they cherish you and all sentient beings the most. That means, of course, numberless buddhas also love you.

You need to think about Dharma widely. The bodhisattvas and buddhas are not limited in qualities. Before they generate bodhicitta, they have to generate compassion for every single sentient being, there is not one left out. Not one slug is left out; not one mosquito is left out; not one spider is left out; not one rat is left out; not one snake is left out; not one cockroach is left out. Like that they have compassion for all the sentient beings, then [wishing] to free them from the oceans of samsaric suffering, so that becomes the basis of bodhicitta.

You haven’t thought enough about the path, the lamrim, the Lesser Vehicle path, the Great Vehicle sutra and Great Vehicle tantra, so it is all contained in the lamrim: the graduated path of the lower capable being, the graduated path of the middle capable being and the graduated path of the higher capable being. This is all contained in the three principal aspects of the path: renunciation, bodhicitta and emptiness.

The basis of great compassion is renunciation—when you think of your own suffering of samsara, then you generate renunciation. Think that all sentient beings are suffering in samsara like you, then compassion is generated, and from there, not only [wishing] to free them from samsara but to bring them to enlightenment, the peerless happiness, by yourself, therefore you need to achieve peerless omniscience. So then the realization of bodhicitta comes.

You have to think more about the path. You know numberless bodhisattvas have great compassion and loving kindness for you. Their compassion and loving kindness for you is more than you love yourself. How much you have for yourself, then of course numberless buddhas’ loving kindness for you is all the time—not only when you are happy and not only when you suffer, they don’t do that. Their loving kindness and compassion is there every second, every split second, thousands more, much more loving kindness and compassion for you and for numberless sentient beings, in every second. You should know that.

This means you didn’t meditate on the lamrim path, not much, otherwise you would know that.

So with the time you have left, reading the lamrim is the best one. Read lamrim—not just like a puja, not like that, trying to finish quickly. Read it mindfully—that is meditation; that is very, very important.

Meditate more on the perfect human body and its usefulness, also impermanence and death, and karma—meditate more on those parts—and then bodhicitta. First meditate on the perfect human body and its usefulness, and the lower path, and secondly, meditate on bodhicitta and then the other one is emptiness. So, in the morning, perfect human rebirth, then in the middle of day, bodhicitta, and in the evening, emptiness.

Please try this.

With much love and prayers ...

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

Regarding your question about guidance regarding death and dying (having just finished your Masters on this)—make notes of your experience so that you can help others and so that your notes can help others. These can be used to help people in the future

Regarding your ten-day retreat, it would be very good if you can do a lamrim retreat, doing prostrations and reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names, Guru Puja, or if this is too long, then Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga, also Six-Session Guru Yoga (as you have taken highest tantra initiations). In each session you do guru yoga as a base—spend a little time making the mandala offering. You can do prostrations within the session or before, then before the guru absorbs into you, this is when you stop and meditate on the lamrim. You can read lamrim books, either “the Great Lamrim” (Lamrim Chenmo) or Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. Each session, you can read from this, but don’t read like you are doing a puja, read like it is a meditation. Read slowly and think about the meaning, relate it to your own life. Then make notes in a book of any questions that come up. Also, you can note any very moving experiences that you have. This can help you in your meditations. Please put effort into bodhicitta, renunciation, guru devotion, emptiness, and so forth.

After lunch you can circumambulate the stupa, reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names, Vajrasattva mantra, or Chenrezig mantra (OM MANI PADME HUM).

Do everything, every action, as much as possible, for sentient beings, for numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, humans, suras, asuras, and intermediate state beings—everyone except yourself. When you do this for others, then you are taken care of by the buddhas and bodhisattvas and sentient beings.

Before going to bed recite the King of Prayers, or you can recite a different prayer from the eight great prayers. You can also recite the Lama Tsongkhapa prayer; this is a very powerful one. At night, recite one mala of the long Vajrasattva mantra with the four powers as well. This would be great.

As much as possible, try to do everything with a bodhicitta motivation. From when you wake up until you go to bed, do everything with bodhicitta.

This should be a great retreat, because you are going through the whole lamrim, it should be unbelievable. Maybe when you come down from the retreat center your feet won’t touch the ground. You can come down without needing a car.

Regarding your yidam, I checked, and for your quickest enlightenment, so that you can enlighten all sentient beings most quickly, the deities to practice are:

• Guhyasamaja
• Yamantaka
• Heruka
• Vajrayogini

Whichever of these you feel more strongly about, that is your yidam. Then, in the future, because all of these came out as good, you can take the other initiations, chant the mantras, etc. But the one you feel strongest about you can do as your main practice.

With much love and prayers ...

To all my dear students and friends who have just finished the Basic Program,
I think this is the best thing that you can achieve in the entire world—having done a three-month lamrim retreat after having studied the Basic Program for two years. This is really an excellent achievement!

The way this Basic Program is organized, with the three-month retreat at the end, is very, very special. Of course, at universities in different countries, it is possible to study Buddhist philosophy, but there is no retreat involved; no practice is involved.

These two things—study and practice—are key to making the mind familiar with the path to enlightenment. Study and practice give the real taste of the Buddhadharma. In this way, you become the real inner scientist. Even in the great monasteries, where there is extensive learning on the path to enlightenment, after they finish exams there is no such thing as an organized retreat on the Dharma subjects they have studied, except, of course, if an individual plans that way from his or her own side. According to my wrong view, for many monks this does not happen.

Some monks, while studying in the monastery, do practice and meditate on the path, as Dromtönpa expressed: “While I am listening, I am reflecting. While I am reflecting, I am meditating.” There are modern examples, like Geshe Rabten and Lama Yeshe. While Geshe Rabten was in Madhyamaka class, he had realizations of the generation stage of tantra. During the puja in the hall with the monks, he could see himself clearly as Yamantaka. Geshe Rabten expressed this to the recent great meditator Jampa Wangdu, who earlier lived in the monastery as a dob-dob (assistant) and then lived in an isolated place, meditating and living on pills made from flowers. Jampa Wangdu continued his meditation in India and had great success.

For the seven-year Master’s Program I advised doing a one-year lamrim retreat. In the end, some did it, but only for nine months. Some wanted to do it, but some didn’t understand, and didn’t want to do it. Those who did the retreat discovered great benefit in their own hearts. Students who are not interested in retreat and practice should realize if they want something for their heart, if they love themselves and want to do something to affect their heart, and fill their hearts with great satisfaction, deep joy, and meaning, then this comes from retreat and practice.

I am extremely, extremely pleased. Even in the beginning there were some difficulties, but you all took my advice to do the retreat on lamrim, so you experienced yourself; you got the real taste in your heart.

This fits with Lama Tsongkhapa’s advice. Lama Tsongkhapa said: “First, you should seek extensive listening of the extensive scriptures. In the middle, all the extensive scriptures should appear as advice (practice). At the end, practice all day and all night. I dedicate it all to the flourishing of the teachings of Buddha.”

So, you see, this fits with what you have done, so I am not crazy! You all have studied the extensive teaching of the Buddha and you have put it into practice by practicing the lamrim, the stages of the path to enlightenment.

It is mentioned in the lamrim teachings of the great Kadampa masters that when you are listening, explaining, and reflecting on lamrim, you are shaking all the teachings of Buddha. This means the lamrim is the heart of all the Buddha’s teachings. This is the expression used.

So, you can see there is no puzzle here. After studying all the five treatises, there is no confusion. You are not saying, “I don’t know how to practice.” This sort of confusion happens even with many Tibetans—not knowing how to practice or how to integrate their studies, because of the lack of understanding of lamrim practice. They do not know how to meditate after extensive study, and sometimes they have to ask another lama of another tradition how to meditate.

Why retreat on the lamrim? Because the lamrim contains every single teaching of the Buddha, all the teachings of the three vehicles. Even one syllable of a lamrim teaching can be seen by the practitioner striving to achieve enlightenment as a personal instruction. Not even one syllable should be left out of the Buddha’s teachings. The main goal of every single word of the Buddha is to tame the mind, because your heart and mind are the creators of all the suffering of samsara, including the three lower realms. When you transform your heart, you are the creator of your happiness and peace, liberation and enlightenment.

Why specifically lamrim retreat? Because it has a very special presentation to subdue the mind. The cause of all suffering of all sentient beings, from where all suffering and problems come, now and in the future, is the mind. If you analyze throughout your life, you will see this clearly. You can also understand this from what the Buddha said:

Do not engage in any harmful actions;
Perform only those that are good;
Subdue your own mind—
This is the teaching of the Buddha.

Whatever you do, if it does not subdue the delusions, it is not Dharma.

Again, from the bottom of my heart, with both my hands, with my ten fingers together, and joined at the heart, I thank all of you billions of times. What you have done is the best gift, the best offering to all the buddhas and bodhisattvas. Doing this kind of retreat—taming the mind through the lamrim—is the best offering, the best benefit for all sentient beings and the best way to bring world peace.

My very dear one,
I think your idea for choosing to meditate on the lamrim lower scope is excellent. Here are my suggestions for the way to do it.

My attendant will arrange with two nuns at Kopan to help you with the retreat. One of the nuns has been the retreat leader at Kopan for maybe thirty years. The other nun can help with Lama Chöpa.

The first session in the morning (before breakfast) should be Lama Chöpa. When you reach the lamrim section of the Lama Chöpa, you recite it in English, slowly and mindfully. One of the nuns can help with the puja. Before the puja, take the eight Mahayana precepts.

After breakfast, you start the meditation on the lamrim, beginning with guru devotion. Here, the nun can help you with the subjects of the lamrim. The idea is that you go through the lamrim step by step. This session you do in the context of six-session yoga, then just before you absorb the guru, who is on one’s crown, you practice the lamrim meditation. When complete, you practice the absorption and finish the six-session guru yoga.

At the beginning of each session, always make prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas and practice a “scanning” meditation on the lamrim for building your motivation (here you can read slowly and contemplatively one of the lamrim prayers, such as the Foundation of All Good Qualities, the Three Principles of the Path, etc).

After lunch, the session can be in the context of Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga. You begin as above, and practice the actual lamrim meditation with the guru on your head.

For the last session, also do Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga. Then, end with the dedication prayers, including King of Prayers and Prayer of the Beginning, Middle, and End. You can do different dedication prayers each day.

Within the lamrim you can spend more time on the lower scope.

With much love and prayer...