༄༅། །རྒྱལ་སྲས་ལག་ལེན་སོ་བདུན་མ་བཞུགས་སོ།། Thirty Seven Practices of Bodhisattvas

The first of the 37 practices is especially important as it speaks of the human body like a boat “in which to cross the waters of ignorance.” All we need to do is climb aboard and learn how to navigate. This takes skill, so we need to practise day and night without wasting a moment of our life. To achieve enlightenment, there is literally no time to lose. Every moment of this life counts. The purpose of these teachings is not to tell people what they want to hear, but to release them from their misconceptions and endless misunderstandings of the universal truth. And this is done with insight, clarity and beauty. Ngulchu Thogme Zangpo explains that our freedom does not depend on the grace of others. It depends on us. Equipped with this knowledge, all beings have the power to free themselves and the entire purpose of practising the Buddhadharma is to be free from suffering, egoism, defilements, everything. Ultimately, we will be enlightened. The doors are closed to no one.
Throughout these stanzas, Ngulchu Thogme Zangpo emphasises the
importance of practising, listening, cultivating and meditating, with the
motivation of liberating all sentient beings. This is the key point. While practising we need generosity, ethics, patience, diligence and concentration to achieve wisdom. We learn how every activity - even sleeping, walking into a room, or talking - has to be dedicated to all sentient beings and to understand how to take every movement, every change, every thought and every appearance as a genuine teaching.
We also learn that if we are attached to someone or something, it becomes a
chain which ties us down. This is a typical characteristic of samsara. You chain yourself: nobody chains you. When we release ourselves from attachment, our understanding and perspective improve. If your practice comes from the depth of your heart, even when you encounter big problems in life, you are in a state where there is no problem. You are prepared and have the ability to stay calm. Everything is much more peaceful and life will be much better if we can manage to practise this.
The text also focuses on the importance of understanding the universal law of karma. Ngulchu Thogme Zangpo asks, “Should we give importance to this life and accumulate a lot of bad karma or should we think of the hundreds of lives to come and strictly abandon accumulating bad karma through negative deeds?”
Indeed, to free ourselves from karmic influence, we must try to abandon our
bad karma and negative accumulations. Not only should they be abandoned, but they should not be practised or committed. To understand this, we must genuinely and diligently engaged in the Bodhisattva practices and choose the long-term rather than the short-term goals.
Synopsis from Gyelwang Drukpa's commentary