Prostrations

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you for your kind request. I am sorry it took so long to send this reply.

Regarding your deity, according to my observation it is: Heruka, Tara Cittamani, Kalachakra, and Vajrakilaya. Cittamani Tara is the main deity for your practice and if there’s the possibility to take initiation, then you can take Heruka and Vajrakilaya also.

Guru Shakyamuni Buddha taught the 84,000 teachings in three levels: the Lesser Vehicle teachings, the Greater Vehicle teachings of sutra, and the Greater Vehicle teachings of tantra. All three are embodied into the lamrim, the graduated path to enlightenment. So the lamrim has the graduated path of the lower capable being in general, the graduated path of the middle capable being in general, and the graduated path of the greater capable being. Then this is condensed even more than that into the three principal aspects of the path to enlightenment: renunciation, bodhicitta and right view.

For you Lama Tsongkhapa’s Middle-Length Lamrim is the main lamrim text. It’s the essence of the whole Dharma. Read it from beginning to end mindfully so that it becomes a meditation. Do this just once. It’s the main lamrim text for you, but it doesn’t mean you can’t read others.

You can read others, like Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, and integrate the information with what you have, especially the preliminary practices from Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand and other lamrim texts you should read.

In terms of effortful practice, meditate on the lamrim outline and repeat this three times from beginning to end, then do effortless practice. The meditation guide is the outline of the Middle-Length Lamrim or The Essential Nectar. You can follow the commentaries from the Middle-Length Lamrim and also use things from other lamrim texts. 

Regarding the preliminaries:

Prostrations by reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names: 300,000. In the merit field there are the Thirty-five Buddhas. You can use this practice from Lama Tsongkhapa’s tradition for purification. In Lama Tsongkhapa’s tradition, prostration is regarded as very, very important.

In Lama Tsongkhapa’s tradition, prostration while reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names is regarded as very, very important. So many people do this daily as a practice. They do one hundred or one thousand every morning, like that, and many people do a lot of prostrations, not just as a preliminary but every day. That’s good; it’s the best thing. So that’s all.

For you, the main preliminary practice is prostrations. It’s the main preliminary practice in the life, according to the lineage of Lama Tsongkhapa and the lineage lamas, so do this every day. That is the main thing. And then what’s explained in the meditation instructions, you have to follow that practice.

You can do other preliminaries as mentioned generally in the texts (refuge, Vajrasattva, mandala offering, Guru Yoga, etc.) but there is no specific number for you according to my observation.

In the breaktime, live your life with the motivation of bodhicitta as much as possible, so that the actions of your body, speech, and mind become the cause of enlightenment.

All that, as much as you do it with bodhicitta motivation—even effortful motivation, even if you don’t have the realization—you collect more than skies of merit. So then eating, sleeping, walking, shopping, working, jogging and so forth, do it with bodhicitta as much as possible.

If done with bodhicitta, then whatever you do, for example, each time you eat food, you collect more than skies of merit. If you recite mantras with bodhicitta, then with each OM MANI PADME HUM you collect merit more than the sky. You should know that. If you sleep, then however many hours or minutes you sleep with bodhicitta, that becomes a cause of enlightenment, and you collect more than skies of merit.

You should rejoice in how fortunate you are to be able to do that, to put effort into that. At least sleeping is like medicine for the health. It’s similar to eating food; it’s protection for the body, so you can practice Dharma for sentient beings. That’s the basic thing. When you practice tantra, there’s sleeping yoga with creativity and without creativity, so like that.

Thank you very much. You are most welcome to enlightenment. Goodbye samsara, that which you’ve experienced since beginningless rebirths. Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear, most kind, most precious one, 
One very good thing is that when you put your hands together to prostrate, you can visualize your body huge as a mountain range and think that you are prostrating with many bodies from all ten directions to the lamrim merit field which has the Thirty-five Buddhas there. Or, [think you are prostrating] just to the Thirty-five Buddhas, or even just to the Buddha. Think that the numberless direct and indirect lineage lamas, the numberless deities of four classes of tantra, the thousand buddhas of this fortunate eon, the bodhisattvas, the sixteen arhats and so forth, the dakas and dakinis and Dharma protectors are all [absorbed] into the Buddha whose essence is the Guru. One is many and many are one.

Then visualize bodies filling all the earth prostrating from all directions, huge bodies like a mountain range. If you have received the initiation of Thousand-arm Chenrezig you can visualize that. If not, just visualize your ordinary body. If you visualize like that, you get the same merit as having done that many prostrations with that many bodies. This is specific advice from Lama Tsongkhapa, and is the way to collect the most extensive merit.

Regarding your question on tantra, any of the lower tantra initiations are OK. That’s very good.

I want to say a billion, trillion, zillion times thanks, now that you have no fear and your mind is developed and you are making your life most beneficial, especially most beneficial for your parents, not only to be free from the oceans of samsaric suffering but also to achieve the peerless happiness of enlightenment. It is so good that you are inspiring others and also inspiring your psychiatrist to learn meditation.

I wish that all the people in the world who have created negative karma like this would be able to change and make their lives better, more meaningful for those people who have been killed.

With much love and prayers...

Dear Katrina,
Yes, that is OK. Visualize your body as numberless [bodies] and large like the mountain, in the aspect of Chenrezig, and filling the whole space. With your hands in the mudra of prostration, then recite the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names. However many bodies you visualize, if they cover the whole earth, then you get unbelievable, unbelievable benefit.

Student: Is it OK to add the refuge preliminary to the beginning of my sadhana practice each morning, after visualization and offering to refuge field?

Rinpoche: That’s completely OK.

Student: Is it OK to do the prostration preliminary in the morning?

Rinpoche: Very, very good! Excellent! Mainly do what is more comfortable for you.

I remember His Holiness Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche, who helped His Holiness the Dalai Lama in education, Buddhist philosophy. Rinpoche became a teacher for His Holiness by giving him the lung of the Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment [Tib: jang chub lam dron]. It was the lung or a commentary, I’m not sure; or maybe another teaching.

Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche was the son of Serkong Dorje Chang in Tibet, who became a lharampa geshe along with the high lama Tehor Kyorpon Rinpoche. He left the monastery go to the high mountains in Lhasa to retreat on lamrim, then he came to India and guided the monks there. He became one who can lead us in life.

Gen Jampa Wangdu was in the village there. He was like a dob-dob [monk police] in Tibet, before it was lost to China. Maybe he was an ascetic monk for one or two years in Tibet. He was the one who achieved shi-nä in Dalhousie. He also achieved bodhicitta and emptiness and had a great experience in the Six-session Guru Yoga in Dharamsala.

Later, because Serkong Dorje Chang had achieved a very high tantric path, he practiced sang-yum in a solitary place and bore so much hardship to complete the path. Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche was the son of that Serkong Dorje Chang, the one who passed away in Tibet and incarnated as a geshe. He escaped from Tibet to Nepal, then passed away in Nepal. He lived at Swayambunath Monastery.

Going back, [the first] Serkong Dorje Chang was Milarepa’s guru, Marpa. Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche was the son of Marpa, Darma Dodé, who was told by Marpa not to go to one of the functions where there were many people, but he went and then he passed away there. He fell from his horse and banged his head on a rock.

One story is that Rinpoche wore skin on his head, I haven’t seen other people do that. I heard that this was because of what happened to Darma Dodé’s head. He was also referred to as Thuksey Rinpoche, which means Marpa’s precious heart son.

So, Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche did prostrations every night. I don’t remember seeing Rinpoche do this in the morning, but I saw him at night time even when he showed the old aspect. In a hotel in Bodhgaya, I had to go late to see Rinpoche. In the same room, Serkong Dorje Chang was asleep on his bed, with a mudra that threatens; his left hand was down and his right hand was up. Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche took off his outer robe, but left on the inside dress and wore this while he was doing prostrations.

Then Lama Atisha, in a very, very, very, old aspect, even did prostrations when he was shaking [unsteady with age].

So it is very, very, very good, excellent, to do prostrations, whether it is morning or night time.

You probably know the benefits of doing prostrations. There are about ten or more than ten benefits. There is the full prostration, but even putting the palms together to the holy objects, to the guru—even just putting one’s palms together, there are eight or ten benefits.

Just one prostration, from here down to the earth, how many atoms your body covers, that many times you create the karma to be born as a wheel-turning king a thousand times. It’s unbelievable. Why explain it this way? To be born as wheel-turning king one time, you need to create infinite merit, inconceivable merit. Of course, you should not dedicate for that, you should dedicate for enlightenment and to lead sentient beings to enlightenment as quickly as possible.

From the heart I want to say again skies of numberless thanks for reading the Sutra of Golden Light and filling the world with it.

Please live life with bodhicitta. Thank you very much! And thank you very much for dedicating for His Holiness and for my health. You can also dedicate for the success of the large statues that I want to build in Tibet, India, Nepal and Mongolia.

It is unbelievably fortunate to be a nun, as well as to read the Golden Light Sutra and to ask people to read it, and even to make full-length prostrations to the Guru.

Your letter shows your attitude and your understanding of Dharma. It’s very, very good, like realization. I am extremely happy about that.

I am sure you didn’t forget our talk at Sera about the thesis you wrote and your studies. Then we travelled together by airplane to Delhi. There I didn’t have any idea, because the hotel where I stayed didn’t have a separate room, so I don’t know what happened. Then we went to another hotel.

Sometime if you have something to ask or discuss, something I can help with, please write and let me know, or write even if you just want to tell me something.

With much love and prayers...

My very dear Julie,
Thank you very much for your kind message. It’s amazing you have been able to do 66,000 prostrations according to my advice. It’s amazing. My message is that the sickness is an extremely positive sign of purification. You have finished the karma of lower rebirths and the hell realms. Now you have purified many eons in the hell realms, so you don’t have to experience that. You are liberated from the lower realms. It’s like that. You get liberated. I’m not saying you are liberated from the lower realms forever. I’m not saying that.

But you should rejoice at what you have been able to do. It’s mind blowing, immeasurable. And the purification has manifested in these illnesses, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have treatment.

Regarding the Vajrasattva retreat, you can do it alone. Bodhgaya is the best place, but also Pokhara would be good. So, you can decide.

I am sorry we have not had the time to meet. Perhaps if there is time after the teachings, we can meet here at Tushita or in the restaurant in the village.

With much love and prayer,

Lama Zopa Rinpoche