Neurodegenerative Disorder
A student with health issues, possibly Lewy body dementia or Parkinson’s, wrote to Rinpoche requesting life practices. She also spoke of her late daughter, who used a wish from the Children’s Wish Foundation to help build a school in Africa.
My most dear, most kind, most precious wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I was very happy to receive it.
I checked regarding your health and you should eat mani pills: two a day for five months. These pills have been blessed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and many thousands of monks. You also need to take the inner offering pill: three pills each day for four weeks.
You need to recite Black Manjushri for your health; not just recitation but doing the practice. Practice this for one month and see what happens, then check after that.
That’s very amazing about your daughter and her compassion. I highly admire that.
Water bowl offerings: 90,000. You can do these in a group, together with other people. At Kopan Nunnery, each year many people offer water bowls, for example, around one thousand water bowls. Each person doesn’t offer one thousand, but as a group, you can count the number of bowls that the whole group has made. In this way you can count all of them, even though you only did a part, so in this way you can finish quickly. This happens each year at Kopan Nunnery. If this is not possible, you can arrange it at a center, or maybe there is a center near you which is arranging this kind of retreat. You can also do it by yourself at home, but that just takes longer.
Chanting the Names of Noble Manjushri (Jampel Tsenjö) recitations: read this prayer every day. This came out for you, so it must be according to your karma. It develops Dharma wisdom and unforgetfulness [recollection]. Geshes who recite this prayer every day can remember all the teachings that they learned in Tibet; they can even remember after forty or fifty years and not forget. This practice develops wisdom and we collect unbelievable merits; it’s so good.
Four immeasurable thoughts: 150,000 recitations.
Tonglen meditations: 50,000.
The main text for you to study is Lamrim Chenmo. Study this three times from beginning to end. Read it mindfully, so it is a meditation from beginning to end. Anything you don’t understand you can write down in a book and ask a student or geshe who has studied the lamrim extensively. If the Lamrim Chenmo is too big, an easier and simpler lamrim is Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, then it is simpler to understand. If you prefer to read Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, study the text three times from beginning to end.
Cycle through the lamrim outline four times to gain effortful lamrim experience, then do effortless meditation.
Your main deity is Vajrayogini, but in order to receive this initiation, first you need another Highest Yoga Tantra initiation. Heruka initiation is best. You need this as a basis, before you can take Vajrayogini initiation. If not Heruka, then any other great initiation like Guhyasamaja, Kalachakra or Yamantaka. After you take Vajrayogini initiation, you can do the retreat.
Taking Highest Yoga Tantra initiations and doing the practice is the quickest way to achieve enlightenment in this life, so we are able to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment quickest.