My most dear, most kind, most precious wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I was very happy to receive it.
Yes, it is excellent that you do fifteen minutes of meditation on the lamrim every day. That is very, very good, especially that it’s lamrim meditation. Anyone can recite mantras and prayers, but lamrim meditation is extremely important, to think of the meaning, to meditate on the meaning. There is analytical and fixed meditation, so lamrim meditation has both of these. It is very, very important.
As far as becoming your guru, you try and I will try. I am not qualified, but you try and I’ll try.
It doesn’t mean you abandon those others you have received teachings from as guru-disciple. It doesn’t mean that; don’t think like that. You have to follow them as guru, even if you have received OM MANI PADME HUM oral transmission or one stanza of a teaching as guru-disciple, with that recognition.
You must read The Heart of the Path. This book should help you regarding the root of the path to enlightenment, how to correctly follow the virtuous friend. That is most important to understand, then you will know how to achieve realizations and how to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings. Otherwise if you make a lot of mistakes, this is the heaviest mistake that destroys [the merit of] 100,000 million billion future lives, not only this life. You have to understand this. Correctly following the virtuous friend is the most important subject and that’s why it’s called the root of path to enlightenment; it’s depending on that.
Practices
Water bowl offerings: 5,000
Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga mantras: 100,000
Diamond Cutter Sutra recitations: During your life always write this sutra. Constantly write it, whatever you can do each day—a few lines, a few pages or the whole sutra. Just continue writing. You should know the unbelievable benefits of this sutra. I have it in Tibetan, but it’s not yet translated. Maybe I will try to translate it one day.
Tonglen meditation: 100,000. You take other sentient beings suffering and give your own happiness. This is a special bodhisattva practice for quick enlightenment, in order to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of suffering and bring them to enlightenment quickly.
For you, the main lamrim text is Manjushri’s Words [Sacred Words of Manjushri; jam päl zhal lung, by the Fifth Dalai Lama]. This is not yet published in English, but when you see it in the future, then you can get it. That is the main lamrim text for you to study.
In the meantime, you can study Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. Study it well from beginning to end. Anything you don’t understand you can write down and then ask a geshe or very good Western teachers who have studied the lamrim well.
To gain effortful experience, follow the lamrim outline for the length of time I have advised. Do the cycle for this number of months on these subjects three times and then do effortless meditation.
