For lay practitioners, the minimum is to take one hour each morning and evening to practice. Everyone should be able to manage at least this much in a day. The practice should begin with the cultivation of renunciation. Once that has reached some stability, go on to practice bodhicitta. After both renunciation and bodhicitta have been generated, move on to contemplate emptiness using the method of the Middle Way as a preliminary. The last is the actual practice of emptiness of which one may choose to go with the Vajrayana tradition if so wished, as Vajrayana practice may bring faster results. However, to practice Vajrayana entails empowerment and observance of the percepts. If unsure of keeping the Vajrayana vows, one can choose the exoteric practices instead, which may also lead to liberation but will take longer time to achieve. 

~Depicted from FROM BELIEVERS TO BODHISATTVAS

Emptiness (ultimate truth, reality) and phenomena (relative truth) have never been contradictory to one another. As mentioned previously, some people mistakenly think that emptiness of the ultimate truth and the phenomena of the relative truth are contradictory after reading the Diamond Sutra and the Heart Sutra. They think that if emptiness is true, there can be no samsara; if samsara exists, it cannot be emptiness. But this is just their personal view. In fact, the two truths do not contradict each other at all. 

Take the earlier example of a piece of fabric. The observation can be made in reverse order from emptiness to the aggregation of quarks, atoms, molecules, etc. and finally wool. Wool can be knitted into yarn, yarn to fabric, and fabric made to clothes. Whether or not to take apart or put together the constituent elements the essence of fabric is actually the same. When put together, the existence of fabric is the relative truth. When take apart, the final non-existence of fabric is of the ultimate truth. The essence of fabric has never been separated from the ultimate truth, but in the relative truth, fabric exists and can be made into clothes. The two are not contradictory. Hence, it was said before that all matter can be defined by the ultimate truth and relative truth. 

~Depicted from FROM BELIEVERS TO BODHISATTVAS

Virtue and evil are the same in terms of the scale of its karmic result. Even engaging in an insignificant, positive act will enable us to experience good health and longevity in the next five hundred lifetimes; however, committing an insignificant, negative act will enable us to experience poor health and short life span in the next five hundred lifetimes or even longer. These are due to insignificant acts leading to great results.

~Depicted from LUMINOUS WISDOM BOOK SERIES

Fatalists think that everything is predestined and under no circumstances can it be changed. Buddhists do not acknowledge this viewpoint. Buddhism holds that even immutable karma can be changed with the attainment of realization of emptiness or true repentance. It is also owing to the view that compounded phenomena are not predestined, but can be improved, transformed and controlled, that we need to learn the Twelve Nidanas. It can be said that not knowing the Twelve Nidanas is in fact not knowing ourselves. 

~Depicted from FROM BELIEVERS TO BODHISATTVAS

Where do these harmful pills come from? Some are from tertons who are actually impostors and some are concocted by demons to hurt sentient beings. At times, genuine nectar pills, after being handled or made by persons who have broken samaya vows, can also be tainted. As Guru Rinpoche did not leave behind many nectar pills, accomplished masters, after retrieving them, will mix them with other nectar and medicinal herbs, then bless the pills through meditation and mantra recitations. If during this process there is one samaya violator among the attending practitioners, the pills will get tainted. 

~Depicted from FROM BELIEVERS TO BODHISATTVAS

One who has no understanding of the law of karma will think karma is mysterious and tarnished with obscure religious elements. In fact, the law of karma is not mysterious at all. If paying closer attention, we’ll come to the conclusion that all phenomena is in the sphere of cause and effect, be it animals, plants or mankind. A certain cause will lead to corresponding result.

~Depicted from LUMINOUS WISDOM BOOK SERIES

Also stated in the Abhidharma-kosha-shastra is that some children may suffer the effect of seriously negative karma that their parents accumulated. If children can suffer the consequences of their parents's negative karma, is it not contradictory to the Buddhist teaching that one reaps what one sows and that no one can assume other's karma? The Abhidharma-kosha-shastra explains that these children themselves already have certain negative karma. Due to the close relationship between the parents and their children, the ripening of the children's negative karma may be expedited when the parents commited extremely evil karma. There are many such documented cases both in the East and the West. Generally speaking, it is very difficult to directly prove the existence of causality because our eyes cannot look beyond this life for causes from the past lives and effects in the future lives. Nonetheless, through indirect means, as shown by the example above, it is possible to prove the link between cause and effect. Not only is samsara conditioned by causality, but also nirvana and liberation. Therefor, if it is liberation that we seek, we must plant the seed of liberation, which will then yield the fruit. Such is the view of Buddhism. 

~Depicted from FROM BELIEVERS TO BODHISATTVAS

Countless buddhas in the past, including Shakyamuni Buddha, vowed to liberate all sentient beings when giving rise to bodhicitta, vowing to attain buddhahood after all sentient beings attain buddhahood. We haven’t attained buddhahood yet, but they have. Why? Buddhas make such aspirations out of vast compassion. Due to the greatest and sublimity of their aspirations, they attained buddhahood swiftly. Whereas we are preoccupied with our own interest, thus we are still struggling in the samsara.

~Depicted from LUMINOUS WISDOM BOOK SERIES

Before engaging in main practice, we need to cultivate renunciation, which entails four practices of outer preliminary practices: preciousness of human body, the impermanence of human life, the infallibility of the law of karma, and the defects of samsara. Once having cultivated renunciation, we should not hurry to engage in practice of calm abiding and meditative concentration; rather, we need to cultivate bodhicitta. Without bodhicitta, there is no aim in our practice. Without aim, what’s the point of engaging in meditative concentration and dzogchen practice?

~Depicted from LUMINOUS WISDOM BOOK SERIES