Texts for Lamrim Meditation

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
According to my observations, you can use the commentary of Lama Tsongkhapa’s short lamrim, A Hymn of Experience, as your main lamrim text.

Buddha Shakyamuni taught 84,000 teachings and that includes the Lesser Vehicle path, the Great Vehicle sutra path and the Great Vehicle tantra path. This is all contained in the lamrim, which started with Atisha, who brought it to Tibet. Lama Atisha wrote Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment, which dispelled all the wrong concepts. At that time in Tibet there was so much misconception and those who practiced tantra could not practice sutra, while those who practiced sutra could not practice tantra.

After Lama Atisha wrote Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment, which is called lamrim, that dispelled all the wrong views and made Buddhism pure in Tibet. Buddhism was revived and has continued for so long, until now. Also, now it has spread to the West where there was no Buddhism before, never in the past, so the pure Buddhadharma has spread.

There are many commentaries on the lamrim, but for you, the main one is The Essence of Refined Gold, written by the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. The other lamrim that you need to study is called Lamrim Matri (the red commentary, or the quick path), but this is not translated into English yet.

Of course, you can study Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, and there are many others, like Lama Tsongkhapa’s Great Lamrim (Lamrim Chenmo). There’s also the Middle-Length Lamrim, and the short lamrim prayer, A Hymn of Experience, etc. Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand is very good, very clear.

I was advised by my guru, Gen Jampa Wangdu whose outside aspect had realized calm abiding, lamrim, and also tantra, the Six Yogas of Naropa and so forth, in this life. He said that the clearest teaching on calm abiding (Tib: zhi nä) is in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, and the clearest teaching for meditation on bodhicitta is the Bodhicaryavatara (A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life). He was told this by my root guru, Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche.

So you also use Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. When you meditate on the lamrim, you can use the outlines from Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand as well as other commentaries, which can be from different lamrim texts. Study A Hymn of Experience and Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand once from beginning to the end.

For effortful meditation on the lamrim, meditate for eight months on correctly devoting to the virtuous friend by seeing the guru as a buddha, using different quotations according to the lamrim. Go around and around, using the lamrim outlines, or you can use the other meditation guide, The Essential Nectar. Go over the outlines for that number of months, so like that. The whole point is to have realizations of guru devotion, correctly devoting to the virtuous friend, so you need to have the realization of that.

After you have that realization, you’re able to actualize all the rest of the path—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 higher capable being, then tantra. [Guru devotion] is called the root of the path to enlightenment, so it’s very, very good [to have that realization].

Then after that do effortless meditation.

For your preliminaries:

• Four immeasurable thoughts, to develop bodhicitta: 30,000. 
• Dorje Khadro fire puja: 40,000. 
• Water bowl offerings: 130,000. You can do these water bowl offerings with a group, for instance, Kopan Nunnery does this each year and this is a very easy way to complete a lot of water bowl offerings. The nuns do this as a group retreat and people come from all over the world and do it together, working together, offering together and dedicating together, then even if not all the water bowls are done by you alone, you can still count them all. Therefore, this is an easy way to complete this practice quickly, by doing it with a group and you can count everybody’s offerings. One lama organized it this way in Tibet in a tent and people practiced in this way. Also, this can be done in your own country, at your local center. You can organize to do it with a group and together you can count all the bowls offered.
• Prostrations by reciting the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas: 60,000.
• Mandala offerings: 100,000.

From time to time, read Chanting the Names of Manjushri. This is so precious and it has unbelievable benefits, to liberate all sentient beings and bring them to enlightenment.

Each year do some nyung näs. First you can join a group then later when you come to know how to do it, you can do the nyung näs by yourself. Once you know how to do it, you can do the practice with a group or do it alone, as you like.

According to my observation, your main deity is Guhyasamaja.

Goodbye samsara. You are most welcome to enlightenment, not only for yourself, but liberating numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering—every hell being, every hungry ghost, every animal, every human being, every asura being, every sura being and intermediate state being—by yourself, and not only that, bringing everyone to full enlightenment.

Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers ...