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Advice from Spiritual Friends
Lama Zopa Rinpoche doing an incense puja at Kachoe Dechen Ling, Aptos, California, US, May 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
In a recent post on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive, you can read Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice on how to transform depression into the path of enlightenment:
“Depression can be a good thing, because it is a sign of purification, of having practiced Dharma.
“There are different levels of how negative karma is purified. With the first level, you never experience the suffering results of your actions. With the second level, you experience these results, but rather than experiencing the suffering result of the negative action for many eons in the lower realms – the hell, hungry ghost or animal realms – instead, the result manifests in this life in the form of some problem, such as depression, a toothache or headache, or being criticized by people and so forth. Unbelievably negative karma manifests as just this problem or even as bad dreams or nightmares; often in the form of sickness, failure in business, or some disaster in your family or in your relationships – other people treating you badly or abusing you; and also in the form of depression.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche doing incense puja at Kachoe Dechen Ling, Aptos, California, US, May 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
“This way you never have to experience the heavy suffering for an incredible length of time, therefore, experiencing this depression is a positive thing. This can be related to whatever problems you have, so you feel positive and happy about them. You should understand all the rest of your problems, whatever you have, in this same way.
“Then there’s the next level of purifying karma. By experiencing this [suffering result] now, you don’t have to be reborn in the lower realms, or maybe for a very short time and the suffering is very light. For example, when you throw a stone on a rock, it hits in one second, like snapping your fingers. Similarly, in that way, all those heavy sufferings for a great length of time are finished instead, by experiencing this suffering now. If you compare that to the experience of heavy suffering for an incredible length of time, it’s very positive, very good. It’s fantastic!
“There’s no question that the problems experienced in the human realm are an incredibly great comfort, even a pleasure, compared to those extremely heavy sufferings in the hell, hungry ghost and animal realms. So now that negative karma that we don’t have to experience is really fantastic. …”
You can read the complete post “Advice on Transforming Depression,” part of “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book,” on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
A stupa surrounded by tsa-tsas at Kachoe Dechen Ling, Aptos, California, May 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an organization dedicated to preserving Mahayana Buddhism through offering the Buddha’s authentic teachings and to facilitating reflection, meditation, practice and the opportunity to actualize and directly experience the Buddha’s teachings. Sign up to receive news and updates.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche speaking to the FPMT European Regional Meeting participants, Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, Pomaia, Italy, June 17, 2014. Photo by Sirianni.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave advice on working for centers in May 2012 at Tushita Meditation Centre:
“Sometimes people who are working at centers only think of the problems – problems, problems, problems. Maybe it makes them feel sick. Their heart becomes very dry, very uninterested. [However,] if you know how to think, it’s really unbelievable. The highest merit is collected and there is the greatest purification by working for the center. Otherwise, you might think, ‘Oh, maybe I’ll go and work in the hospital, there’s much more merit from doing that.’ You see, when you don’t think of Dharma, when you completely forget that the Dharma is the only way to really benefit sentient beings, to liberate them from suffering, then you start thinking things like, ‘Oh, maybe I’ll go and help in a children’s camp, that’s more beneficial.’ People think like that.
“This is a recent letter that I wrote that I thought would be helpful for others:
“Thank you very, very much for working for the center, arranging facilities and so forth. The Dharma center is to benefit sentient beings, to free them from the oceans of samsaric suffering, all the sufferings, and bring them to enlightenment. So you working for the center means that. …”
Read the complete advice and find other advice from Rinpoche on fpmt.org.
More information, photos and updates about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be found on Rinpoche’s homepage. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche via email, sign up to Lama Zopa Rinpoche News.
Rinpoche choosing flowers for offerings, Aptos, California, May 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
“The purpose of having this precious human body is not simply to achieve happiness for oneself, but to eliminate the suffering of all other beings and to bring them happiness as well,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche instructs in his book Transforming Problems Into Happiness, published by Wisdom Publications. “This is the purpose of each of our lives. This human body is precious because with it you have the capacity and opportunity to pursue spiritual development in order to serve other living beings.
“Everyone wants happiness; no one wants suffering. The happiness we need is not just ordinary, fleeting happiness; what we really need is ultimate happiness, the unsurpassed, unshakable happiness of enlightenment. When people go shopping, for example, they want the things that are the best, that will last the longest; in the same way, everyone wants the longest-lasting, highest happiness. According to their understanding of what level of happiness is achievable, everyone attempts to obtain whatever is, in their view, the highest happiness.
“The Buddha’s teachings, called the Dharma, tell us the highest happiness achievable is enlightenment. The only reason anyone would not want to achieve enlightenment is that they lack Dharma wisdom. Lacking Dharma wisdom means simply being unaware that there exists a happiness higher than ordinary happiness. Anyone who has encountered the Dharma and studied it sincerely knows that one can be liberated from the bondage of suffering and can experience peerless happiness, that one can put an end to all obscurations, and that one can attain all the realizations of a buddha. Of course a person who knows these things can be achieved wants to achieve them. …”
You can read more from this excerpt on Wisdom Publication’s website.
More information, photos and updates about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be found on Rinpoche’s homepage. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche via email, sign up to Lama Zopa Rinpoche News.
Khadro-la, August 2011. Photo by Philippe Garric.
Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drönme first appeared to the international FPMT community through “Interview with a Dakini.” She’s since become known through the assistance she has been offering Lama Zopa Rinpoche since he manifested a stroke in 2011 and also through serving as an oracle at the Kalachakra initiation given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Bodhgaya, India, in January 2012. Here she talks about integrating lam-rim into daily life.
“In ordinary life, gaining wealth, food and shelter brings some pleasure at a physical level but not at a mental level. The worst suffering is mental suffering. Therefore, we have no choice but to learn how to transform such suffering. To do this, one needs to transform the mind. Wealth, rank and position can never handle or deal with mental suffering. Even having a large number of friends or guardians does not help because when faced with mental suffering, nothing can help except for mind-training.”
From Mandala October-December 2009.
Mandala brings you news and advice of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and of activities, teachings and events from over 160 FPMT centers, projects and services around the globe. If you like what you read on Mandala, consider becoming a Friend of FPMT, which supports our work.
In 1975, FPMT founder Lama Yeshe explained why “meditation is simple” to a group of students in Bloomington, Indiana, United states. Mandala shared some of that teaching in the September-November 2002 issue:
Meditation is very simple. When hearing about meditation for the first time, you might think, “That must be very special; meditation couldn’t be for me but only for special people.” This just creates a gap between you and meditation.
Actually, watching television, which we all do, is a bit like meditating. When you watch television, you watch what’s happening on the screen; when you meditate, you watch what’s happening on the inner screen of your mind – where you can see all your good qualities, but all your inner garbage as well. That’s why meditation is simple.
The difference, however, is that through meditation you learn about the nature of your mind rather than the sense world of desire and attachment. Why is this important? We think that worldly things are very useful, but the enjoyment they bring is minimal and transient. Meditation, on the other hand, has so much more to offer – joy, understanding, higher communication and control. Control here does not mean that you are controlled by somebody else but rather by your own understanding knowledge-wisdom, which is a totally peaceful and joyful experience. Thus, meditation is very useful.
From Mandala September-November 2002
Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Riverside, Washington, US, April 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
“There is no question what to do to make your life meaningful. The most important thing is to practice Dharma, because everyone wants happiness and does not want suffering, even the tiniest insect does not want to suffer. In order to stop all the suffering (which is not wanted) and to cause all happiness (which is wanted) depends on abandoning the cause of suffering and practicing the cause of happiness. Therefore, there is nothing else – only Dharma.
“Therefore, you need to learn Dharma and practice Dharma. …”
– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from the page “A Meaningful Life” in “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book”
Learn more about Lama Zopa Rinpoche, spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), and Rinpoche’s vision for a better world. Sign up to receive news and updates.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche upon arriving in Sarnath, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
A new post on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive features Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice on purifying past karma. Rinpoche responds to a letter from a student diagnosed with breast cancer at length. Here’s an excerpt:
“… Even this life’s problems come from the wrong concept and wrong action. This life’s happiness also comes from the right concept, the correct way of thinking, and correct actions, pure actions. From that, inner happiness comes. So even this hour’s happiness, right now, if we think in a positive way, then we have happiness, but if we think in a negative way, then we have suffering. Even the person who got angry towards us in the past, who gave us harm in the past, who we regard as an enemy, maybe first we cherished that person and now we have renounced him. Maybe in the beginning we were attached and now totally the opposite.
“In the beginning we thought that person was the same as a holy being, a bodhisattva or buddha, or even just a good human being, then when he gets angry with us, provokes us, harms us, or even tries to kill us, we see him as an enemy. Actually we should see him as the most kind person; this person who is our enemy is our teacher of patience, for us to learn patience. Maybe we do meditation on patience, but here, this person is our practical teacher. We can do the action meditation of patience with him, so we have the opportunity to use him and to see him as most kind – kinder than someone who gives us a hundred thousand dollars. Just giving us a hundred thousand dollars, that alone doesn’t help us to be free, to have a happy death or to stop us being reincarnated in the hell realms or as a hungry ghost or animal.
“If we practice patience towards the person who is angry at us, who harms us, by thinking how extremely kind he is, then we don’t get reborn in the lower realms as a hell being, hungry ghost or animal. Also the enemy actually gives us the opportunity to create the cause for good rebirth and for our next life to be born as a deva or higher. Then also that person becomes the cause to cease all of our sufferings and to achieve ultimate happiness, full enlightenment, peerless happiness for sentient beings and to be able to free the numberless sentient beings from each realm from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to omniscience, ultimate happiness and full enlightenment. …”
Read the entire letter “Purifying Past Karma” online from the Archive’s “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book.”
Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an organization dedicated to preserving Mahayana Buddhism through offering the Buddha’s authentic teachings and to facilitating reflection, meditation, practice and the opportunity to actualize and directly experience the Buddha’s teachings. Sign up to receive news and updates.
Image: dreamstime.com
Jampa Jaffe, FPMT registered teacher, answers in the April-June 2014 issue of Mandala the question: why does Buddhism place so much emphasis on the mind?
In emphasizing the mind, Buddhism is stressing that when we look to a person, a thing or a situation for the solutions to our fundamental problems, we’re projecting outside what can only be found within.
In our everyday living, we too often behave like the person who has lost his keys along a dark street and yet searches for them beneath a streetlight on the corner, thinking it much easier to see them there. However, the reality is that no matter how long and hard he searches, he will never find what he’s looking for, because he’s looking in the wrong place.
There’s a simple story based on a verse from Shantideva’s A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life that illustrates Buddhism’s emphasis on the mind. There was a king in ancient times who took great pleasure in strolling about the countryside of his kingdom. One day, while out walking, he stepped on a thorn, injuring his foot. Returning to his palace in great pain, the king called together his ministers. “Look,” he exclaimed, “Look at my foot! This cannot be allowed to happen again! You must find a way whereby I can walk freely about my kingdom without the danger of hurting myself!” …
From Mandala April-June 2014
Lama Zopa Rinpoche doing korwa at the Mahabodhi Temple, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.
“… On the basis of [reflecting on the lam-rim], we should generate the good heart, bodhichitta, the thought of benefiting others. This is our best refuge, especially for those of us whose lives are very busy, who don’t have much time for sitting or other traditional forms of practice. On the basis of reflecting on impermanence and death, we should make the good heart the main object of refuge in our lives. This allows all our actions to become Dharma, the cause of enlightenment and the cause of happiness for all sentient beings. Therefore, we should lead our lives with this attitude, the thought of benefiting all sentient beings.
“If you recite a Vajrasattva mantra once with bodhichitta you get the same benefit as you do from reciting 100,000 without it. If you make one light offering with bodhichitta, you get the same amount of merit as you do from making 100,000 light offerings without it. If you make charity of one dollar to a sentient being – a beggar or a homeless person – with bodhichitta, you get the same amount of merit as you do from making charity of $100,000 without it.
“It is said in the scriptures that if the sentient beings of three galaxies – the Tibetan term is tong-sum, but I’m not exactly sure how best to translate it, you should check for yourselves – all build stupas of the seven precious substances, such as gold, diamonds and so forth, and fill the whole world with these stupas, the merit of that is far less than that created by just one person offering a tiny flower to the Buddha with bodhichitta motivation. The person making this small offering with bodhichitta motivation creates far more merit than three galaxies of sentient beings covering the world with stupas made of the seven precious substances without it.
“Try to imagine this. If you build just one stupa you create unbelievable merit. It directs your life to enlightenment and is an amazing purification. So here we have three galaxies’ worth of sentient beings, each one building a stupa of the seven precious substances – not with bricks and mortar but with precious jewels – and covering the world with these. Nevertheless, the merit of one person offering a tiny flower to the Buddha with bodhichitta motivation creates far more merit than that.
“Thinking about this should inspire you to make bodhichitta your heart practice. It transforms your life like iron into gold or kaka into diamonds. Bodhichitta motivation gives your life its greatest possible meaning and makes every single action of your daily life as beneficial as it can possibly be. You should remember bodhichitta from morning to night, twenty-four hours a day. Hold it as your most precious possession, as your wish-fulfilling jewel. You should cherish your bodhichitta motivation above all else; remember it constantly and practice it at every moment. …”
– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from The Joy of Compassion, “Chapter One: Living with Compassion,” published by the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive
Learn more about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche and his beneficial activities by visiting Rinpoche’s homepage, where you will find links to Rinpoche’s schedule, new advice, recent video, photos and more.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche walking up to Vulture’s Peak, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.
“If you are performing the daily actions of your life with two attitudes, you are getting close to enlightenment. The two attitudes are: 1) having a sincere heart, doing social service with compassion (working for others); and, 2) meditating on the lam-rim (the gradual path to enlightenment). This may not mean actually meditating, but living your life with lam-rim, in order to purify and collect merit, and then on top of that practicing tantra, in order to achieve enlightenment quickly, or at least to prepare the mind, by leaving positive imprints every day. Social service means doing something for others, doing it from your heart. Even if it is only a little help that you give, you still get real satisfaction, like you have done something meaningful in your life. You have done something positive. Then, every day, every moment, every second, you are getting closer to enlightenment.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche making an offering to a beggar on the way up to Vulture’s Peak, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.
“Otherwise, if you just live your life only thinking about your own pleasure, trying to achieve it for yourself, with attachment, then the main aim of your life is you. You are looking for pleasure for yourself, sexual pleasure and so forth, with attachment, and from this comes only pain. Everything just becomes painful.
“There is the pain of separation, where you can’t stand to be away from the person you are attached to. Then, each day, your feelings becomes stronger, until the attachment becomes unbearable. Then there comes the pain of jealousy toward others. You don’t want others to have a connection. You have so many worries and fears, and it becomes so much suffering.
“If your life does not have these two things in them (social service or lam-rim) then no matter how much you meditate, if it is not done with lam-rim, or by doing social service, doing work for others, then instead you are only doing it for yourself, and your whole life gets tied up with attachment, to sex and other things. Then there is nothing positive in your life, now or in the future. Your life will become dark, because your whole life is lived with the self-cherishing thought, with desire, attachment and clinging to this life, and all of these are non-virtues. So when you die, you don’t have any positive thoughts, and you are not able to renounce life. …”
– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from “Dealing with Attachment” on “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book.”
Learn more about Lama Zopa Rinpoche, spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), and Rinpoche’s vision for a better world. Sign up to receive news and updates.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche giving the oral transmission of the Vajra Cutter Sutra on Vulture’s Peak, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche, during the annual lam-rim course at Kopan in 2000, gave the oral transmission of the Heart Sutra and the Vajra Cutter Sutra. Here is an unedited transcript from the first day of teaching he offered at the course. In it, Rinpoche explains the importance of correctly understanding emptiness, which is the subject of the two sutras:
As I mentioned before, I’ll repeat again, we need to, must remove the imprint of delusion. For that, need to study teachings on emptiness, right view. Have to realize emptiness. Not just what people call “emptiness,” not just any kind of emptiness, what people call “emptiness,” even Dharma books – what anybody calls “emptiness,” not that. It has to be the right one. It has to be right one because the root of samsara, root of the suffering, only one very specific wrong concept, very specific wrong concept. There’s not many roots of samsara; there’s one typical, there’s one specific ignorance: even though the “I” exists in mere name, merely imputed by the mind, that’s how – it’s not that the “I” doesn’t exist. “I” exists. It exists being merely labeled by the mind. That’s how it exists. That’s what the “I” is. What is “I” is that. That’s all.
By realizing ultimate nature of “I,” after that, how you come to realize, by realizing absolute truth of the “I” then the next, as a result, you realize conventional truth of the “I.” How the “I” exists you come to know. You come to discover what is the “I.” How it exists you come to know that it exists being merely imputed by the mind.
So when you discover “I” this is how you see – other than that is an hallucination. “I” other than that, what we believe, what appears to us, totally hallucination, false “I.”
So, therefore, there’s a very specific root of suffering, ignorance: a concept. I’m not going to go into details. We allow our mind when – twenty-four hours our mind continuously impute “I.” Our mind imputes “I.” …
You can read the entire transcript of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings at the 33rd Kopan Course in November 2000 on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive, which preserves the teachings of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Learn more about Lama Zopa Rinpoche, spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), and Rinpoche’s vision for a better world. Sign up to receive news and updates.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche does prostrations at Vulture’s Peak, the site of Buddha’s first teaching, India, February 2, 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
The most important thing for this life’s happiness, especially for the sentient beings you meet, is to have the thought:
I am the servant and they are the masters. I am the servant and they are the kings. They are the masters and I am like the dog. Sentient beings are the ones from whom I have received all my happiness. They are the dearest and most kind.
They are the ones from who all opportunities come, in relation to whom I have the opportunity to purify all my negative karma, create all the merit, and attain enlightenment. So they are the kindest of all. I should use my body, speech and mind to serve others, especially the people of the [Dharma] center, as well as all the animals and insects.
This is also the attitude one should have with one’s family, or if you are a teacher or the leader of a company, etc.
– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from Service as a Path to Enlightenment, from FPMT Education Services
Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an organization dedicated to preserving Mahayana Buddhism through offering the Buddha’s authentic teachings and to facilitating reflection, meditation, practice and the opportunity to actualize and directly experience the Buddha’s teachings. Sign up to receive news and updates.