Dear one,
In response to your request for advice regarding what to do so you can live at least five more years in order to learn and practice Dharma, I am sending you the following advice. The specific materials, protections, water, etc, will also be sent directly to you.

The pujas which need to be done for you are gyab shi (the main one), she nyin dü dog and chag sum. Request Geshe Ngawang Drakpa from the San Francisco center to do gyab shi for you, however, I will perform the remaining pujas for you.

These things will be coming in the mail to you:

• The yellow cloth square is a protection which you should wear (usually around your neck).
• The pills in the white envelope should be put in water. When washing, use this water, especially over your head. Think that it is holy and blesses you, purifying sickness, spirit harm, negative karma and defilements.
• The Most Secret Hayagriva incense should be put on charcoal and burned, then you can breathe the smoke, waving it towards yourself.
• There is also blessed water, which can be sipped from time to time.

Finally you should release/liberate 130 animals. Follow the instructions according to the book Liberating Animals [available from FPMT Foundation Store.] Have as many pictures and tsa tsas on the circumambulation table as possible, at the same level as the animals you are carrying around. Bless the water by chanting mantras, then blow on the water, and sprinkle it on the animals, in order to purify them. You should also recite mantras loudly to them for purification. You could also join the Sangha at Rinpoche’s house in Aptos and do the mantras there, if that is easier for you, or do them with Ven.Drimay.

In terms of what practices you should do, these are listed and explained below. Regarding the practice of the four immeasurable thoughts, don’t just recite the words, but also think of the meaning.

The lam-rim meditations and how long you spend on each scope should be the main focus of your meditation during these times. Go back to whatever realizations you don’t have and train until your realizations are stable, however many weeks, months and years this may take. Go one-by-one, in order to generate bodhicitta, and train until this is stable. First you must have familiarity with the subjects, so read Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand and also the Middle Lamrim. For your daily meditation, use The Essential Nectar and the lamrim outlines, as long as you have already read the whole lamrim, such as Liberation or the Middle Lamrim.

Practice Advice

• Prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas: 30,000
• Mandala offerings: 40,000
• Vajrasattva: 40,000
• Dorje Khadro (burning offering): 600,000
• Water bowl offerings: 300,000
• Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga: 50,000
• Four immeasurables: 100,000
• Practice Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga every day.

Lamrim meditation

• Path of the lower capable being: five months
• Path of the middle capable being: three months
• Bodhicitta: eleven months
• Emptiness: nine months

The main deity for you to become enlightened and to bring all sentient beings to enlightenment is Kurukulla.

With love and prayers...