With a long-term plan to learn and practice Dharma, your mind can completely change and you can achieve realizations.

Throughout your life, follow this advice from the great Kadampa geshes:

Look far ahead.
Generate a vast mind.
Don’t squeeze yourself.

Think long term

The first piece of advice is mig gyang zig: “Look far ahead.”

Since your objective is to achieve enlightenment, you have to look far ahead, just as when you’re traveling to some very distant place or like climbing Mount Everest: you have to have a strong determination to go there; you keep your eye on what you want to achieve. So, extend the mind that way.

The goal of enlightenment in the heart: this is the purpose of practicing meditation and the entire path.

Think big

The second advice is lo gya kye: “Generate a vast mind.”

For example, you could be a small child in kindergarten, but your final objective might be gaining a university degree. You have to look far ahead and generate a vast mind, thinking that you are going to do all the preliminary study in primary school and high school and finally study in university and get your degree. With a broad mind, a vast mind, you make a plan to study all these things.

Or let’s say you have a plan to build something—like an airplane, a boat, a house, a shopping center, etc.—you have to plan the many rooms and parts and all the things needed to build it.

It’s the same in terms of achieving enlightenment. You to study all the different subjects: all of the lamrim, the Basic Program, the Master’s Program, tantra: everything. You should have a vast mind, planning to study and learn everything about the whole path to enlightenment, as well as to practice it and actualize all the realizations.

Relax!

The third advice is kong sang lhö: “Don’t squeeze yourself.”

So, while you have that plan, you also have a relaxed mind. Don’t allow yourself to become stressed out, thinking, “Oh, I have to do all this!” With a vast, brave mind, think, “No matter how long it takes, I’m going to do it. I’m not going to give up.” You have the plan inside your heart, but at the same time your mind is calm and relaxed. “I’m going to do all this. Even if it takes many, many years, I’m going to do it.” When you do follow this advice, your mind naturally relaxes. Your mind is not stressed, not uptight.

You can become enlightened

These are essential pieces of advice from the Kadampa geshes about how to go about achieving enlightenment. And if you follow these instructions you will definitely achieve enlightenment, even though you might think it’s impossible.

As Kadampa Geshe Dölpa said:

If you collect merit, purify your obstacles, and practice guru devotion,
Which causes you to receive blessings in your heart,
And put effort into meditating on the path,
Even the difficult realizations you believe won’t happen
Will happen within a few years.

This can happen because your mind is only temporarily obscured; your obscurations are not oneness with your mind. All your negative emotional thoughts are temporary, not permanent. Since they happened because of causes and conditions, they can be changed by other causes and conditions, by purifying negativities, collecting merit, practicing guru devotion and meditating on the path. With a long-term plan to learn and to practice Dharma, your mind can completely change and you can achieve realizations.

This is how the Kadampa geshes planned.

Dedication prayers

Just as the great Kagyu Yogi Choje Gotsangpa said, you too can think:

By my experiencing this problem of being in prison
May all sentient beings immediately be free from disease, spirit harm, negative karma, delusions
And from being in all the prisons—
Not only the outside prison, but the inside prisons—
Which contain all the sufferings and have no beginning,
And may they achieve enlightenment.

Due to all the three-time merits collected by me, numberless sentient beings and buddhas,
May the precious bodhicitta mind be developed in my heart and in the hearts of all my family members,
In the hearts of all the leaders of the world,
As well as in the hearts of all the people who follow different religions,
As well as in the hearts of all sentient beings.
Whatever bodhicitta has already been developed,
May it not decrease, but increase forever more.

Due to all the three-time merits collected by me, numberless sentient beings and buddhas,
By having generated bodhicitta in my heart every day,
May everyone in the world live their life only to benefit others,
May no one harm another,
And may whatever they do with their body, speech and mind
Cause only enlightenment and happiness to all sentient beings.

May no one experience war, famine, disease, torture, sickness,
dangers of earth, water, tsunami, wind,
As well as may no one experience dangers when traveling.
May they always be safe when traveling, including in the airplane.

Due to all the three-time merits collected by me, numberless sentient beings and buddhas,
Who exist but who are empty from their own side,
May the I, which exists but which is empty from its own side,
Achieve complete buddha’s enlightenment,
Which exists but which is empty from its own side,
And lead all the sentient beings,
Who exist but who are empty from their own side,
To full enlightenment, which exists but which is empty from its own side,
And may I actualize this by myself alone.