Study & Practice News

Lama Zopa Rinpoche blesses horse at an animal sanctuary, June 2019. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Students can now find information and resources on how to benefit animals on a new page on FPMT.org.

Students can access the page to learn about how to complete animal liberation practices; perform animal blessings with mantras and holy objects; make charity to ants; bless oceans, seas, lakes, and other bodies of water; benefit insects and other small beings; stop animal sacrifice in Nepal; and benefit turkeys eaten during Thanksgiving, among other ideas for benefiting animals in the short and long term.

Students will also find interesting information about vegetarianism and veganism, including a 2011 statement from Lama Zopa Rinpoche on how avoiding eating meat or reducing meat consumption helps reduce the number of animals that are killed.

Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.

Students can find over a dozen Dharma CDs in the Foundation Store available by donation!

Find these titles and more in the Foundation Store:

• Recitations for the Time of Death, Lama Zopa Rinpoche recites mantras and texts that are especially suitable for humans or animals to hear at the time of death.
• Recitation for Animals, Lama Zopa Rinpoche recites mantras and texts that are especially suitable for animals to hear throughout their lives.
• Recitations for Alleviating Pain, Lama Zopa Rinpoche recites the Sutra for Entering the City of Vaishali as well as other prayers and mantras to help alleviate pain.
• Oral Transmission of the Golden Light Sutra, Lama Zopa Rinpoche offers the oral transmission of the Golden Light Sutra (Sutra of Golden Light). Rinpoche allows those who listen to this recording to receive the transmission in full. You must listen to the entire sutra in order to receive the full transmission.
• How to Meditate on Emptiness, Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches on emptiness and other topics in Barcelona, Spain.
• Heruka Vajrasattva Tsog Offering, Lama Yeshe chants the Heruka Vajrasattva tsog text he composed in 1982.

Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche blesses horse at an animal sanctuary, June 2019. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Students can now find practices and advice for benefiting animals on FPMT.org, including instructions on animal liberation and animal blessings.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche recommends animal liberation as a specific practice done for animals who would otherwise be killed, such as livestock, bait worms, and live feeder insects. The practice involves taking the endangered animals around holy objects, reciting mantras for them (such as those found on the audio CD Recitations for Animals), blessing water to sprinkle onto their bodies, and then releasing them. Rinpoche teaches that the practice benefits animal spiritually and is an incredible practice for anyone who is ill or experiencing life obstacles. Animal blessings, on the other hand, involve blessing animals with mantras or holy objects, even if they are not in danger.

On the “Benefiting Animals” page on FPMT.org, students can also learn about how to make charity to birds, insects such as ants, and other small animals; mantras beneficial to animals; and ideas for blessing oceans, seas, lakes, and other bodies of water. Students can also find advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche about how to best benefit animals during their lifetimes, encouragement to reduce one’s meat consumption and become vegetarian or vegan, and a sampling of animal-focused FPMT centers, projects, and services.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche leading an animal liberation during a Vajrayogini retreat, Institut Vajra Yogini, Marzens, France, May 2019. Photo by Tsanka Petkova.

Find animal liberation and animal blessing resources in the Foundation Store:
https://shop.fpmt.org/search.asp?keyword=animals&search=

The Animal Liberation Fund supports animal liberation at Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s residences and other animal liberations worldwide:
https://fpmt.org/projects/fpmt/alf/

Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.

Precious mantra hat, available in the Foundation Store

This cotton precious mantra hat, designed by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, is covered with embroidered mantras:

• The mantra of Chenrezig, which is for developing compassion, among other benefits.
• The Phagpa Chulung Rolpai Do Mantra, which upon seeing, purifies 100,000 eons of negative karma and obscurations.
• The Wish-Granting Wheel Mantra, which purifies one thousand eons of negative karma for anyone that passes beneath it.
• The Six Syllables of Clairvoyance Mantra, which after fifteen days upon seeing, purifies any heavy negative karma created in the past.

“Just by wearing this hat when you go out in public, not only when you play golf but anywhere, in the street, on the beach, in the market, where many people are shopping—anywhere that animals or people can see you—you are liberating others,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche has taught about the benefits of wearing the hat. “If any flies or other insects go under or around your hat (with mantras on), or maybe a person walks around you on the way to another shop, all the time you are liberating so many sentient beings who are suffering.”

Learn more about the benefits of the precious mantra hat on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/80N3dGDXpJU

Find the precious mantra hat in the Foundation Store:
https://shop.fpmt.org/Precious-Mantra-Hat-_p_606.html

Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.

Shakyamuni Buddha turning the wheel of Dharma for the first time, Land of Medicine Buddha, Wish Fulfilling Temple mural, Soquel, California, USA

Chokhor Duchen, one of the four annual holy days of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, takes place this year on August 4. On these holy days, the power of any meritorious action is multiplied by 100 million, as cited by Lama Zopa Rinpoche from the vinaya text Treasure of Quotations and Logic. Specific advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche for practices to do on merit multiplying days such as Chokhor Duchen can be found here. (Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice for merit multiplying days is also available in French.)

Known in English as “Turning the Wheel of Dharma,” Chokhor Duchen commemorates the anniversary of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s first teaching. It is said that for seven weeks after his enlightenment, the Buddha did not teach. Afterward, Indra and Brahma offered a Dharmachakra and a conch shell and requested Guru Shakyamuni Buddha to teach. Accepting, Guru Shakyamuni Buddha turned the wheel of Dharma for the first time at Sarnath by teaching the four noble truths.

If you decide to recite the Sutra of Golden Light on this special day, you might like to report your recitations using the reporting facility on FPMT.org.

Sangha members, Kopan Nunnery, Kathmandu, Nepal, April 2019. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Chokhor Duchen is also the day on which FPMT celebrates International Sangha Day! International Sangha Day provides an opportunity for the lay and monastic communities to come together in recognition of their interdependence and acknowledge the ways in which they rely on each other for the practice of Dharma.

Sangha member and lay students receiving teachings from Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Madrid, Spain, April 2019. Photo by Harald Weichhart.

Here are some suggested ways you can honor monastics on International Sangha Day:

• Recite The Sutra for Remembering the Three Jewels
• Show respect for and appreciation of the sangha
• Generate deeper awareness of the Sangha Jewel
• Donate to the Lama Yeshe Sangha Fund

We rejoice in all of the meritorious activities happening around the world on this auspicious merit multiplying day!

Lama Zopa Rinpoche and other sangha members, Nalanda Monastery, Rouzegas, Labastide-Saint-Georges, France, June 2019. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Please keep in mind: According to the late Ven. Choden Rinpoche, one of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s gurus, observation of auspicious days should be according to the date in India, not the date in one’s home country. Therefore, when Lama Zopa Rinpoche is not in India, Rinpoche celebrates the great holy days of the Buddha and other auspicious dates according to the time in India.

Special thanks to the Liberation Prison Project for preparing a Tibetan calendar with information on holy days and other important dates for avoiding or engaging in various activities:
https://shop.fpmt.org/search.asp?keyword=calendar&search=

Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.

The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment) with Additional Practices is available in print from the Foundation Store. Lama Zopa Rinpoche has said very strongly on many occasions that this is a practice that he would like all his students to do every day.

In this updated edition of the practice, the sections “Blessing the Speech” and “Daily Mantras” have been revised based on Rinpoche’s commentaries and the original Tibetan texts from which they are drawn. A new section—“Mantras for Specific Occasions”—includes mantras for increasing the power of sutra recitations and for blessing the feet and the wheels of a car. All the mantras in this edition have been written using a modified version of the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) system that accords with Rinpoche’s instructions.

In addition, the many oral commentaries that Rinpoche has given on this practice have now been compiled and edited into an ebook—The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment) with Additional Practices: A Commentary—to help students do these practices in the most meaningful way possible. In the commentary, Rinpoche explains how and why it is important to transform our life into Dharma by generating a bodhichitta motivation. In the commentaries to “Blessing the Speech,” “Daily Mantras,” and “Mantras for Specific Occasions,” Rinpoche explains the benefits of doing these practices and how to do them. We hope the commentaries will help inspire all of Rinpoche’s students to take up these practices in their daily lives!

Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Ladakh, India, July 2014. Photo by Olivier Adam.

On July 6 the world will celebrate His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s 84th birthday. Enjoy these many resources available to help celebrate, praise, and learn from His Holiness!

Long Life Prayers

• Updated with the new alternate long life prayer, Prayers for the Long Life of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Tibet includes all the prayers for His Holiness and Tibet that are found within Essential Buddhist Prayers, such as “Prayers for the Long Life of His Holiness the Dalai Lama,” the “Prayer that Spontaneously Fulfills all Wishes,” “Remembering the Kindness of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan People,” and “Prayer for Tibet.” “Long Life Prayers for His Holiness Dalai Lama” was composed by the late tutors to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, His Holiness Ling Rinpoche, and His Holiness Trijang Rinpoche. Translated by Gelongma Khechog Palmo in Rumtek, Sikkim. “Remembering the Kindness of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan People” was composed by Lama Zopa Rinpoche especially for the success of His Holiness’s wishes, and in particular for the Tibetan people, and for there to be perfect peace and happiness in the world and for all sentient beings to achieve enlightenment.

• Lama Zopa Rinpoche typed out advice on how to celebrate His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s birthday. In the advice, Rinpoche discusses what prayers to recite and in what order, remarking that “doing [these prayers for His Holiness the Dalai Lama] will help your practice very much; you will get the realizations of the path.” Rinpoche later requested that this advice be given to all FPMT centers, projects, and services. FPMT International Office has collated Rinpoche’s advice into this booklet, How to Do the Great Festival of His Holiness’ Birthday in the Best Possible Way.

Praises and Requests

• “Praises and Requests to His Holiness the Dalai Lama” is a collection of praises, comments, and requests by Lama Zopa Rinpoche concerning His Holiness available in the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive Online Advice Book.

Writings

• The Foundation Store offers a number of books by His Holiness, including his most recent book co-authored with Ven. Thubten Chodron, The Foundation of Buddhist Practice, published by Wisdom Publications.
  
• When His Holiness was nineteen years old, he composed a Chenrezig guru yoga sadhana titled The Inseparability of the Spiritual Master and Avalokiteshvara. The practice includes visualizations that inspire the development of compassion and wisdom and is included in Becoming the Compassion Buddha by Lama Yeshe.

FPMT International Office wishes His Holiness a very auspicious 84th birthday and sincerely requests His Holiness to live for a very long time to continue bringing his universal message of compassion to the world.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama explaining a text on the first day of his teachings at the Kalachakra Maidan in Bodhgaya, Bihar, India on January 5, 2018. Photo by Lobsang Tsering, courtesy DalaiLama.com.

Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.

Sanghata Sutra

The Sanghata Sutra is a Mahayana sutra containing stories illustrating the power of invoking the bodhisattva wish when interacting with others; and the power of past and present actions to produce expansive results. Imbued with the blessings of the power of prayer invoked by Shakyamuni Buddha himself, recitation of this sutra produces a great mass of positive karma that can quickly ripen, even in this life.

“Probably I don’t need to tell you what the text says about how much merit you collect each time you hear this sutra,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche remarks. “Each time you hear it, how much merit do you collect? First of all, one buddha has completed the merit of wisdom and the merit of virtue—there is nothing more to collect … and then how many buddhas? The number of buddhas equaling the number of sands of grain in the Ganga River times twelve. And these sand grains are not ordinary grains of sand. It is explained in the teachings, in the great enlightened Phabongkha Rinpoche’s notes, that these grains are made of extremely subtle atoms. There are seven kinds of subtle atoms, water atoms, earth atoms, and so forth. These sand grains are much, much finer than what we usually think.

“In addition to that, when it comes to talking about the benefits of bodhichitta, or the benefits of the Arya Sanghata Sutra, the Ganga does not refer to the Indian River Ganges. It refers to the Pacific Ocean. Now, that many numbers of buddhas times twelve. The merit of just one set of buddhas equaling the number of sand grains in the River Ganga, even just one set—how much merit that is … is beyond words, unimaginable. Even just the merit that one buddha has collected is beyond words. So, now, beyond that, the merit that you collect every time you hear the Arya Sanghata Sutra is equal to twelve times the merit of the number of buddhas as there are sand grains in the River Ganga.

“So, that is just by hearing it. This means that anyone hearing it—animals, frogs, birds, so no question about pets like your beautiful cat, your darling cat, even spirits—collects that much merit. Can you imagine? It is like an impossible thing in the life that happens. When those animals, your cat and other animals, hear you recite Buddha’s teachings, it definitely makes them to receive higher rebirth and to meet Dharma.

“The very minute you hear it, the five uninterrupted negative karmas—the extremely heavy negative karmas that right after death, immediately without interruption of another life, you get born into hell; you get reborn in the lowest hot hell, which has the heaviest suffering of the lower realms, of which the life span lasts for one intermediate eon—those get completely purified. This happens even for the sentient beings who hear the sutra, the minute they hear the sutra. …”

Find the Sanghta Sutra in the Foundation Store:
https://shop.fpmt.org/Sanghata-Sutra-English-_p_603.html

Learn more about the Sanghata Sutra on FPMT.org:
https://fpmt.org/education/prayers-and-practice-materials/sutras/

Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.

The Namgyalma mantra on this full-color card printed on pearlized paper is extremely powerful and is the main mantra to purify and liberate beings from the lower realms, purify negative karma, and help those who are dying or have died.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has discussed many times its power and use to benefit sentient beings.

“If you put this mantra in a stupa or on a banner inside the house or above the roof, the negative karma of the insects or people who are touched by the shadow of the banner or the stupa are purified, and they are liberated from the lower realms,” Rinpoche has taught. “Also, the wind that touches this stupa or banner or statues with this mantra inside will purify the negative karma to experience rebirth in the lower realms, as soon as it touches any being. They are not reborn in the lower realms.

“If the Namgyalma mantra is on a mountain, the negative karma of all the insects or people who walk on that mountain are purified. It is also mentioned that if you have the Namgyalma mantra in your house, the house becomes purified and blessed, and the same applies to your car. It is very good to have the Namgyalma mantra in your car, because any insects or people who touch the car will be purified. There is no question about how much purification there is when sentient beings recite this mantra, touch this mantra, or keep it on their bodies.”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche describes more benefits of the Namgyalma mantra on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/8hZg9Me_Ogs

Find more Namgyalma mantra items in the FPMT Foundation Store:
https://shop.fpmt.org/search.asp?keyword=namgyalma+mantra&search=

For more on mantras, visit FPMT Education’s mantra resource page:
https://fpmt.org/education/prayers-and-practice-materials/mantras/

Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.

How to Make Charity to Ants was compiled by Lama Zopa Rinpoche and is inspired by a text written by Ngulchu Dharmabhadra, a well-known yogi and lineage lama. Using food, visualization, blessed substances, and mantras, students can free ants from the lower realms and plant the seeds of enlightenment in their mind streams.

“I go for walks for my diabetes; His Holiness the Dalai Lama has told me to do so,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche shares. “Twice, during my walks up a mountain at the Washington retreat place, I saw two nests of ants covered by short dry grass; they were next to a rock, and there were one or two ants outside the nests. Now it is winter, so there will be snow for a long time, and the grass helps protect the ants from the rain and snow. Amazing! Even the ants know that the grass prevents the water from leaking inside; they made it this way. Human beings use grass on the roofs of their huts; I was very surprised that ants could think of that too, their bodies being so tiny.”

But Rinpoche reminds students, “The ants cannot practice lamrim; there is no way for them to learn. You can explain to them for 1 billion eons day and night without break for even a second that the cause of happiness is virtue, but there is no way they can learn.” By relying on this short practice, students can benefit ants despite the limitations of the ant mind.

How to Make Charity to Ants is available by donation through the Foundation Store:
https://shop.fpmt.org/Charity-to-Ants_p_1430.html

Read more on FPMT.org about how Lama Zopa Rinpoche has cared for ants in the past:
https://fpmt.org/tag/ants/

Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.

Nyung nä merit field from a thangka painting by Peter Iseli

The FPMT Foundation Store offers several beautiful full-color posters of meditation and practice deities. The following large-format, printed posters are currently available for order:

• Shakyamuni Buddha
• Four-Armed Chenrezig
• Thousand-Armed Chenrezig
• Nyung Nä Merit Field
• White Tara
• Thirty-Five Confession Buddhas

The posters feature original paintings by artists Robert Beer and Peter Iseli. 

The Foundation Store stocks many cards and posters of meditation and practice deities. Find a complete listing here:
https://shop.fpmt.org/Cards-Posters_c_529.html

Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche attends Saka Dawa celebrations at Chenrezig Institute, Eudlo, Queensland, Australia, May 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

An auspicious merit multiplying day, the full moon of the month of Saka Dawa, is coming up on June 17.

The fifteenth day of Saka Dawa is one of the four great holy days of the Tibetan calendar, commemorating Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment and parinirvana. Any actions done on this day, both auspicious and harmful, are magnified in their power. Karmic results are multiplied by one hundred million, as cited by Lama Zopa Rinpoche in the vinaya text Treasure of Quotations and Logic.

According to Ven. Choden Rinpoche, one of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachers, observation of auspicious days should be according to the date in India, not the date in one’s home country. Therefore, when Lama Zopa Rinpoche is not in India, Rinpoche celebrates auspicious dates according to the time in India.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recommends practices for these special days. Specific advice for practices to do on merit multiplying days can be found here, including advice to recite the Sutra Remembering the Three Jewels.

If you choose to recite the Sutra of Golden Light on this or any other day, don’t forget to report your recitations, which can be done on the Sutra of Golden Light reporting page.

Water bowl offerings, Martigny, Switzerland, November 2018. Photo by Harald Weichhart.

Special thanks to the Liberation Prison Project for preparing a Tibetan calendar with information on holy days and other important dates for avoiding or engaging in various activities.

Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.