First, train in the preliminaries.

There are two points here, the preliminary to a period of meditation and preliminary instruction.

Preliminaries to a Period of Meditation

First, at the beginning of every period of meditation, imagine your root guru sitting on a lotus-and-moon seat above your head. His body is radiant and his face happy and smiling as he regards all beings with nonreferential compassion. In him, all the root and lineage gurus are present.

With intense respect and devotion, repeat the lineage prayer if you wish and, in particular, the following prayer a hundred or a thousand times.

I pray for your blessing, my guru, great and completely worthy spiritual friend. I pray that you will cause love, compassion and bodhicitta to arise in my mind.

Then, imagine that your guru descends through the aperture of Brahma and sits in your heart in a pavilion of light, like an open shell. This exercise in intense respect and devotion is known as guru yoga. It is important to begin every period of meditation this way.

Preliminary Instruction

Second, with respect to preliminary instructions, if the four contemplations -that is, the difficulty of obtaining a free and well-favored existence, death and impermanence, consideration of the shortcomings of samsara, and action as seed and result – are new to you, they are fully explained in the graded-path texts. You need to work at these contemplations so that they definitely become part of your thinking. Here is a concise presentation of the basic points for those who would like one.

The Actual Instructions

In order to obtain the framework for the practice of dharma, this precious human existence, which, in being free and well favored, offers excellent opportunities, one must practice excellent virtue, since this is its karmic seed. Since the proportion of sentient beings that do practice virtue thoroughly is very small, the result, a free and well-favored existence, is difficult to obtain. When one considers the numbers of other sentient beings, such as animals, it is evident that human existence is just a remote possibility. Therefore, you should, above all else, work at dharma wholeheartedly so that the human existence now obtained is not wasted.

Furthermore, since life is uncertain, the causes of death are numerous, and one can’t even be sure that death won’t come today, one must exert oneself in the dharma right away. At the time of death, except for virtuous and nonvirtuous actions, nothing will follow, not wealth, food, possessions, nor land, body, or status. Since these are not even as helpful as a straw, there is not the slightest need for them.

After death, the power of karma causes one to experience birth in one of the six classes of beings. Whichever it is, there will be nothing but suffering, not even a strand of happiness.

Since happiness and suffering infallibly develop from virtuous and nonvirtuous actions, one should not do anything evil even at the risk of your life. One should practice only virtuous actions with great diligence.

You should energetically train yourself in this kind of thinking. At the end of every period of meditation, perform the seven-branch prayer as many times as you are able to. In postmeditation periods, put the points of your reflections into practice. These instructions apply to all forms of preparation and actual practice.

—excerpted from The Great Path of Awakening: An Easily Accessible Introduction for Ordinary People by Jamgon Kongtrul, translated by Ken McLeod

Don’t expect applause.

Don’t expect others to praise you or raise toasts to you. Don’t count on receiving credit for your good deeds or good practice.

— excerpted from “Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving Kindness” by Chögyam Trungpa

Don’t be frivolous.

Don’t demonstrate frivolous jealousy at your friends’ success. If an acquaintance is wearing a new tie or a new blouse that you yourself would like, don’t capriciously point out its shortcomings to him or her. “Yes, it’s nice, but it has a stain on it.” That will only serve to irritate him and won’t help either his or your practice.

— excerpted from “Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving Kindness” by Chögyam Trungpa

Don’t be jealous.

If somebody else receives praise and you don’t, don’t be envious.

— excerpted from “Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving Kindness” by Chögyam Trungpa

Don’t wallow in self-pity.

Don’t feel sorry for yourself. If somebody else achieves success or inherits a million dollars, don’t waste time feeling bad because it wasn’t you.

— excerpted from “Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving Kindness” by Chögyam Trungpa

Liberate yourself by examining and analyzing.

Simply look at your mind and analyze it. By doing those two things, you should be liberated from kleshas and ego-clinging. Then you can practice lojong.

— excerpted from “Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving Kindness” by Chögyam Trungpa

Train wholeheartedly.

Trust yourself and your practice wholeheartedly. Train purely in lojong – single-mindedly, with no distractions.

— excerpted from “Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving Kindness” by Chögyam Trungpa

Don’t vacillate.

You should not vacillate in your enthusiasm for practice. If you sometimes practice and other times do not, that will not give birth to certainty in the dharma. Therefore, don’t think too much. Just concentrate one-pointedly on mind training.

— excerpted from “Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving Kindness” by Chögyam Trungpa

Don’t misinterpret.

There are six things that you may twist or misinterpret in your practice: patience, yearning, excitement, compassion, priorities, and joy. It is a misinterpretation of patience to be patient about everything in your life but the practice of dharma. Misinterpreted yearning is to foster yearning for pleasure and wealth but not to encourage the yearning to practice dharma thoroughly and properly. Misinterpreted excitement is to get excited by wealth and entertainment, but not to be excited by the study of dharma. It is twisted compassion to be compassionate to those who endure hardships in order to practice dharma, but to be unconcerned and uncompassionate to those who do evil. Twisted priorities means to work diligently out of self-interest at that which benefits you in the world, but not to practice dharma. Twisted joy is to be happy when sorrow afflicts your enemies, but not to rejoice in virtue and in the joy of transcending samsara. You should absolutely and completely stop all six of these misinterpretations.

— excerpted from “Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving Kindness” by Chögyam Trungpa

This time, practice the main points.

“This time” refers to this lifetime. You have wasted many lives in the past, and in the future you may not have the opportunity to practice. But now, as a human being who has heard the dharma, you do. So without wasting any more time, you should practice the main points.

This teaching is threefold:

1. the benefit of others is more important than yourself;
2. practicing the teaching of the guru is more important than analytical study;
3. practicing bodhichitta is more important than any other practice.

— excerpted from “Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving Kindness” by Chögyam Trungpa