A Daily Meditation on Shakyamuni Buddha eBook

Lama Zopa Rinpoche specifically compiled A Daily Meditation on Shakyamuni Buddha for beginner Buddhist practitioners to use as the basis of a formal meditation practice. In this revised version, Rinpoche has reorganized some of the prayers and, in particular, has added an extensive explanation of the visualizations to be done while taking refuge. Drawn from Phabongkha Rinpoche’s Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, for each of the objects of refuge—Guru, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—there are visualizations for purifying negative karma, increasing qualities, and coming under the guidance of that object of refuge.

Subtitled “How to Meditate on the Graduated Path to Enlightenment” the practices contained in this booklet prepare the mind for lamrim meditation by purifying negative karma and collecting extensive merits—the two main causes for attaining the realizations of the path to enlightenment (renunciation, bodhichitta, and the right view of emptiness).

This booklet contains:
- A motivation for doing the practice
- Commonly recited verses for taking refuge and generating bodhichitta, for purifying the place, for invoking Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, and for blessing, multiplying, and presenting offerings
- Prostrations with mantras
- A visualization for taking refuge
- A motivation for taking refuge
- The extensive practice for taking refuge mentioned above
- The four immeasurables
- A bodhichitta motivation
- Seven-limb prayer
- A short mandala offering
- Several requesting verses
- A short lamrim prayer, The Foundation of All Good Qualities, by Lama Tsongkhapa
- Recitation of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s mantra
- Absorption of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha
- Dedications

This practice can also be used as a basis for engaging in the preliminary practices of accumulating 100,000 prostrations, mandala offerings, and so forth.

2018 edition.