Day 1

The lamrim is the main road, the direct highway to enlightenment

– Lama Zopa Rinpoche

The full responsibility of each of us is to free every sentient being from suffering and its cause and bring them to enlightenment, by ourselves alone. In order to do this, we first need to attain enlightenment ourselves; we need to achieve the omniscient mind that sees all sentient beings directly. Then we can read sentient beings’ individual minds, see all their characteristics, levels of mind and karma, and know all the methods that will suit even one sentient being’s mind to lead that being from happiness to happiness to full enlightenment.

To reach enlightenment ourselves, we need to actualize the path, which doesn’t happen without cause and conditions. That is, we need to actualize the steps of the path to enlightenment, to follow the graduated path to enlightenment, the lamrim. That’s the only way to complete the path. And to bring realizations, the steps of the path have to be practiced in the right order. By just meditating on the bits we like and avoiding the bits we don’t—like the sufferings of the three lower realms, impermanence and death, and the suffering nature of samsara and life—by not thinking about or meditating on what we feel to be unpleasant, not putting these teachings into practice, and focusing only on the parts that sound good, we can’t really achieve any realizations.

For example, without meditating on samsara as only in the nature of suffering, without feeling as if we’re caught in a fire or trapped in a tank of raw sewage or sitting naked in a thorn bush, we can’t develop total aversion to samsara or renunciation of it. Without that, we can’t realize compassion for other sentient beings or bodhicitta, and therefore we can’t enter the Mahayana path. In other words, we have to achieve the realizations of the graduated path to enlightenment.

• To free all beings from suffering we must first achieve enlightenment ourselves
• Every topic in the lamrim needs to be practiced, and in the right order
• This is the only way to achieve realizations and complete the Mahayana path

Day 2

In the lamrim, we deal with reality, and reality speaks to us

– Lama Yeshe

The lamrim reveals our ignorance, desire, hatred and ego and demonstrates how these negative minds result in complications and misery. Each lamrim meditation is an antidote to a certain delusion and helps us eliminate it.

I tell you, Buddhism is something really scientific and practical, and the lamrim is like an apple, ready to eat—we can nourish ourselves simply by consuming it. If every morning we do a short meditation with good understanding and the strong motivation of wanting to help others, I truly believe our entire day will unfold very smoothly. It’s that simple. Normally, how much energy do we expend in trying to make ourselves happy? For example, we spend months and months, years and years, in school studying all kind of things, but we don’t put energy into something that will actually make us happy. It’s so silly. However, we can change our way of thinking and our entire life, and that is the beauty of Buddha­dharma, which shows us how to change our life from negative to positive.

Don’t believe in something supernatural up there. If we act in a certain way, meditate on certain things, we turn our wisdom on. Each lamrim meditation is like a switch—when we have a particular problem, we turn on the relevant switch and there is light. If we have another problem, we turn on a different switch. We push the right button, the Dharma light comes on and our disaster situation vanishes. It is very scientific, therefore we can do it.

• The lamrim shows us our delusions and gives us meditations to eliminate them
• Buddhism is a realistic and scientific method to change our way of thinking
• Each lamrim meditation is designed to generate wisdom and eliminate suffering

Day 3

Dedicating our life to achieving lamrim realizations is the most important thing we can do

– Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Going through the main points of the lamrim outline gives us a wonderful overview of the Buddha’s teaching. From it we can see the full array of subjects dealt with by Buddhism and understand the path that all the buddhas followed on their way to enlightenment. Also, as we look at the various divisions of the teaching as shown in the lamrim outline, we can see that everything the Buddha taught is in there; everything we need to receive enlightenment ourselves. Thus, great faith in the teaching arises within us. When we have faith in the teaching of the Buddha, listening to it is much more beneficial.

The great meditators, the highly realized yogis, all followed outlines in their practice. This was their skill; this was how they attained enlightenment quickly. And this is the great treasure that they passed on to their disciples, to people like us. Thus, they have made it easier for us to gain realizations quickly, with less hindrance. When we first encounter the lamrim teachings, neither the teachings themselves nor the outline make much sense to us. But as we continue to practice analytical meditation on the various topics and gain experience of them, even just remembering the outline will give us a fantastic feeling. The entire path, everything the Buddha taught, will come home to us without our having to go through all the countless words. Just bringing the outline to mind will be such a strong, powerful experience.

At the moment, even when we do read the many detailed words, it takes a long time and we don’t feel much, but we have to be patient. If we persevere, all will come in time.

• The lamrim outline gives us an overview of all the Buddha’s teachings
• All the great meditators of the past used this outline to quickly gain realizations
• We need to be patient: with perseverance we will definitely make progress