My most dear, most precious, most kind, wish-fulfilling one,
I’m very happy that the FPMT center helped and you were able to stop using drugs, smoking, drinking and all that. That’s great, great, great. It not only benefits you but it also helps numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, suras, asuras and intermediate state beings. Wow, wow, wow. No question, it’s not only for yourself. It’s the basis of everything, the basis of your path to enlightenment. Thank you very much. I hope everyone in the world, or at least the students, becomes like you.

One student became a monk maybe three times, I’m not sure, but then he became a lay person again. He took drugs and he died in bed with his wife. He took a lot of drugs and the next morning his wife saw him dead. I want to tell you this information.

It’s great, great, great that you’ve been a serious practitioner. That’s really great. I jump from the bed onto the floor; I jump up and I jump down. That’s it. You did a very good job and the FPMT centers need you as an example to help and encourage others.

You’re like a hero in the war who runs toward the enemy to kill them. You’re a practitioner, a hero for other people. Wow, wow, wow. You can tell many people about this, especially tell the people who do drugs, who take to smoking and drinking. These [habits] are not easy to remove or to abandon.

You might be interested, so I’ll send you a book with a long quotation by Padmasambhava about all the catastrophes happening in the countries and in the world due to smoking cigarettes. Basically, it also means snuff since all [the products] come from the same materials, but mainly it’s about smoking, which makes the place impure, polluted, and makes the environment very impure, polluted and dirty.

It harms the nagas and landlords so the protectors go away and the evil beings come back and increase, harming you and other people. Then the landlords and nagas become upset and the country has very heavy violence of fire, water, air and earth. All these things have happened in recent times in America, China and many countries. We always hear about that.

All these things come from smoking cigarettes, and not only that, it destroys the environment and makes it impure and dirty. The beings who help the Dharma, [the Dharma protectors], the white side beings, run away, they go away, so it’s very, very bad. And the evil ones, all those that are bad for the country, come.

I’m sure this is not the only thing. The main thing is causing so much harm to human beings and animals. In one day in the world so many billions, billions, billions of chickens are killed, so many pigs are killed and even more fish are killed. Wow, wow, wow. This also causes violence in the country.

Smoking is the worst thing because it’s destroying the environment, making it impure and causing all these problems. This is one thing. Padmasambhava explained this, so I will send you the book. There are the root text and the commentaries and then from that you can explain to others. Of course, what you explain has to be whatever fits others’ [minds]. Not everyone will accept what is said there, so you have to explain it carefully.

Yes, I will try to be your guru but I’m not qualified. Maybe you are a qualified student but I am not a qualified guru. I will try with prayers and you can create good karma, you can pray.

Please do the morning meditation practice, How to Make My Lives Wish-Fulfilling: The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness, which makes your life beneficial for every hell being, every hungry ghost, every animal, every human, every sura and every asura being, every sentient being. That means every animal, every ant—scientists say there are 13,000 different kinds of ants—every mosquito, every tiny fly, every sentient being in the water, even those that you can only see with a machine, the numberless beings under the ground, in the trees and the bushes, and in the bodies of humans and animals. [This practice makes your life] most beneficial for every sentient being and that’s why it’s most beneficial for you.

It’s important to read the explanation of why we need to practice Highest Yoga Tantra, remembering that the whole point is to lead sentient beings to enlightenment as quickly as possible—to free them from samsara and lead them to enlightenment as quickly as possible. This is the main point, the ultimate aim.

According to my observation your main deity is Cittamani Tara, the Highest Yoga Tantra deity. In order to receive the initiation of this, you need to receive another great initiation before Cittamani Tara. It is an extremely blessed and powerful practice, it’s extraordinarily blessed, also there are teachings on the practice. [A Cittamani Tara commentary by Lama Yeshe is available from LYWA] You can do a retreat after receiving the initiation. You can do an enabling retreat, then there’s a one-year retreat that you can do later. Study the commentaries and then you can do a longer retreat.

Every day recite the Praises to the Twenty-one Taras for all the success, to achieve enlightenment in order to free sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment by yourself. To achieve enlightenment, is the main thing. Do this practice at least four times each day. That’s the main thing, and by the way, [dedicate for] all the needs to help your family and for yourself to be able to practice Dharma and benefit others. Recite the Praises to the Twenty-one Taras at least four times each day and more if you can.

Also make offerings to Tara every day as much as possible, do the seven-limb practice, refuge, bodhicitta, the four immeasurables and the mandala practice. This helps very much. And especially rejoice, which is the most unbelievable way [to collect merit] just by using the mind.

I think in one Guru Shakyamuni Buddha meditation there is a good explanation of the seven limbs, or you may find more explanation in another place. So that will help.

Reciting the Praises to the Twenty-one Taras is very, very important for everything.

Also live your life with bodhicitta motivation. When you are going to sleep, sleep with bodhicitta, and when you eat, eat with bodhicitta. Even when you go to the toilet, for pipi and kaka, do it with bodhicitta, thinking all sentient beings are in your heart and all their negativities and obscurations come out.

When you’re doing Vajrasattva practice, visualize sentient beings in your heart, then nectar comes and purifies all of their negativity collected from beginningless lives. So it’s not only your negativity being purified; you’re helping everyone—numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts numberless animals, numberless humans, numberless sura and asura beings. This is great, great, great, the best thing you can do for your life.

The text for you to study and practice is the Middle-Length Lamrim. Of course, you can read other texts and then when you meditate, you bring the knowledge from the other texts to your meditation and that makes it clearer. Read the text from beginning to end three times.

You can study calm abiding, but this zhi nä practice is something you can do later when everything is set up for you, the place and everything. You can do it then, not now. Read mindfully so that it becomes a meditation. This will help you to actualize the path to enlightenment.

In terms of effortful meditation practice, use The Essential Nectar or the outlines of the Middle-Length Lamrim as your guide. Do effortful lamrim meditation following the outlines three times.

Regarding the preliminaries, do the following:

• 105,000 tsa tsas, shared between Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, the Thirty-five Buddhas, Mitukpa and White Mahakala, who is an extremely powerful wealth-giving deity. Divide the number between those four but do more of the Thirty-five Buddhas.
• 105,000 mandala offerings. You can do the long mandala offering once, twice or three times and then visualize the seven heaps or piles, and as much as you can, do the elaborate offering. There’s an extensive commentary which I gave twice and there’s a recent one I gave in Taiwan. You can get that, although the last part is not yet complete. That’s a good one for you to read, if you can get that one.
• Nyung nä. Do as many you can each year. That’s most powerful. It’s just two days but it’s a most powerful purification and you collect extensive merit. By generating compassion embracing all sentient beings, it becomes a quick way to be reborn in the pure lands and to achieve enlightenment.

Live your life with bodhicitta motivation as much as possible in order to become free from samsara. This is the best life.

Thank you very much. Welcome to enlightenment and goodbye samsara.

With much love and prayers ...