Lam Rim Meditation from the Lama Chopa Practice
By the power of my having made offerings and respectful requests to you, holy and venerable Gurus, supreme field of positive potential, inspire me, protectors and root of well-being and bliss, to come under your joyful care.Realizing how this body of liberties and endowments is found but once, is difficult to obtain and is easily lost, inspire me to partake of its essence, make it worthwhile and not be distracted by the meaningless affairs of this life.
Aghast at the searing blaze of suffering in the lower realms, I take heartfelt refuge in the Three Jewels. Inspire me to eagerly endeavor to practice the means for abandoning negativities and accumulating virtues.
Violently tossed amidst waves of disturbing attitudes and karma, plagues by hordes of sea monsters – the three kinds of suffering – I seek your inspiration to develop an intense longing to be free from this monstrous ocean of boundless and vicious existence.
Having abandoned the mind that views this unbearable prison of cyclic existence as a pleasure grove, I seek your inspiration to partake of the treasure of arya’s jewels and the three trainings, and thus to uphold liberation’s banner.
Having considered how all these pitiful beings have been my mothers and have raised me with kindness again and again, I seek your inspiration to develop unaffected compassion, like that of a loving mother for her precious child.
There is no difference between myself and others: none of us wishes even the slightest suffering, nor is ever content with the happiness we have. Realizing this I seek your inspiration to enhance the bliss and joy of others.
The mind that cherishes all mother beings and would secure them in bliss is the gateway leading to infinite virtue. Seeing this, I seek your inspiration to cherish these beings more than my life, even should they rise up as my enemy.
In brief, infantile beings labor only for their own ends while Buddhas work solely for the welfare of others. With a mind understanding the distinctions between the failings of one and the advantages of the other, I seek your inspiration to enable me to equalize and exchange myself for others.
Since cherishing myself is the doorway to all torment, while cherishing my mothers is the foundation of all that is good, inspire me to make my core practice the yoga of exchanging self for others.
Thus, venerable compassionate Gurus, inspire me so that all negativities obscurations and sufferings of mother sentient beings without exception ripen upon me right now, and that I give my happiness and virtue to others and thereby invest all beings in bliss. (3X)
Should even the environment and the beings therein be filled with the fruits of their karmic debts and unwished for sufferings pour down like rain, inspire me to take these miserable conditions into the path by seeing them as causes to exhaust the results of my negative karma.
In short, no matter what appearances may arise, be they good or bad, inspire me to transform them into a path ever enhancing the two bodhicittas through the practice of the five forces – the quintessence of the entire Dharma – and thus to attune myself solely to the bliss of the mind.
Whatever I occasion to meet, inspire me to adapt it to my meditation by the skillful means of the four acts of use. May I render this life of liberties and endowments infinitely meaningful by practicing mind-training’s advice and commitments.
In order to rescue all beings from the vast seas of existence, inspire me to become adept in bodhicitta through a pure selfless wish, and by love and compassion conjoined with the visual technique of mounting giving and taking upon the breath.
Inspire me to eagerly endeavor to practice the three Mahayana ethical codes, and to restrain my mindstream with pure bodhisattva vows, the single path journeyed by all victorious ones of the three times.
Inspire me to complete the perfection of generosity through the guideline teaching for enhancing the mind that gives without attachment, transforming my body, wealth and collection of virtue of the three times into the objects desired by each and every sentient being.
Inspire me to complete the perfection of ethical conduct of working for the sake of sentient beings, collecting virtuous deeds and not transgressing the bounds of the pratimoksha, bodhisattva and tantric vows even at the cost of my life.
Should all the myriad beings of the three realms become angry at me, humiliate, criticize, threaten or even kill me, inspire me to complete the perfection of patience not to be distraught but to work for their benefit in response to their harm.
Even if I must remain for an ocean of eons in the fiery hells of avici even for the sake of one sentient being, inspire me to complete the perfection of joyous effort to strive with compassion for supreme enlightenment and not to be discouraged.
Having abandoned the faults of lethargy, agitation and mental wandering, I seek your inspiration to complete the perfection of meditative concentration through the samadhi of single-pointed placement upon the nature of reality – all things are empty of true existence.
Inspire us to complete the perfection of wisdom through the space-like yoga of single minded placement upon ultimate truth, conjoined with ecstasy and great bliss induced by the discriminating wisdom analyzing suchness.
Inspire me to perfect samadhi on illusion by realizing how all external and internal phenomena lack true existence, yet still appear, like a mirage, a dream or the image of the moon on a still lake.
Samsara and nirvana lack even an atom of true existence, while cause and effect and dependent arising are unfailing. Inspire me to discern the import of Nagarjuna’s thought – that these two are complementary and not contradicting.
Thereupon, inspire me to cross the labyrinth ocean of tantra through the kindness of our navigator, Vajradhara, and to hold more dear than my life, my vows and pledges which are the roots of powerful attainments.
Inspire me to cleanse all stains of ordinary appearance and grasping through the first stage yoga of transforming birth, death and bardo into the three bodies of a Buddha, so that whatever arises may arise as the body of a yidam.
Inspire me to actualize in this life the path of unity of the clear light and illusory body, which arises from placing your feet, protector, at the very center of the central channel at the eight petals of my heart.
If I have not completed the points of the path at the time of death, inspire me to be led to a pure land through either the instruction of applying the five forces or by the forceful means of enlightenment, the Guru’s transference of mind.
In short, inspire me, protector, to be cared for by you without separation, from birth throughout all my lives, and thus to become your chief disciple holding every secret of your body, speech and mind.
Protector, please grant that all be auspicious for me to be among your very first circle of disciples wherever you manifest Buddhahood and hence all my temporal and ultimate wishes be effortlessly and spontaneously fulfilled.
Having thus been entreated Supreme Guru, grant my request: in order to inspire me, happily alight on the crown of my head and once again set your radiant feet firmly at the corolla of my lotus-heart.