Study & Practice News

Service as a Path to Enlightenment, available in ebook formats through the Foundation Store, is a compilation of two letters—“Cultivating a Skillful Attitude” and “Leading with the Mind of a Servant”—dictated by Lama Zopa Rinpoche for FPMT staff members concerning how to make working for an FPMT center, project, or service the best kind of service. Any student can benefit from reading this text.

“At the Dharma center, we should generate this motivation in the morning after we wake up, wherever we are—in our bed or on a chair,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche writes. “From that time until we die, but especially on that day, we should think: ‘This is how I’m going to think about everybody at the center—the staff and the visitors: “Everyone is most precious, dear and kind.” I’m going to practice this.’ This is what makes our life most happy and joyful. Wow!

“Our heart and all our actions change and we respect everybody. We have good manners and sweet words, and every single action of our body, speech, and mind is respectful. We want to help others, naturally, with deep interest. We don’t get bothered and we are unbelievably happy to help.

“Working at the center is for all sentient beings and especially to spread Dharma—the most important thing that others need to free them from suffering and bring them to enlightenment. That’s our motivation for working at the center with all the staff and visitors. If we keep our mind on this, it’s fantastic and we’re doing the best Dharma practice.

“It’s exactly the same if we are at home with our family or working for a company or the government. Practicing that way, there’s no personality clash. There’s no empty space between that person and us, and everybody is in our heart. Everyone is close to us and we’re very close to everyone. That makes others happy and it makes us happy, so we have the most wonderful life, the best life.”

Service as a Path to Enlightenment is available through the Foundation Store:
https://shop.fpmt.org/Service-as-a-Path-to-Enlightenment-eBook-PDF_p_2792.html

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Ven. Lobsang Sherab, Monica Hung, and Ven. Carol Corradi with mantra posters, Aptos, California, US, June 2017. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

FPMT Education Services’ mantra resource page on FPMT.org offers students many commonly used mantras for their personal use. Recently added are the Just by Seeing Mantras—the Phagpa Chulung Rolpai Do Mantra and the Six Syllables of Clairvoyance Mantra, which are only necessary to be seen by sentient beings to have benefit.

Mantras, meaning “mind protection,” are Sanskrit syllables, usually recited in conjunction with the practice of a particular meditational deity, and embody the qualities of the deity with which they are associated. Some mantras are so powerful that they are said to be able to benefit others even when no virtuous motivation is present.

Extensive advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche about the benefits of reading, writing, or reciting particular mantras, or how to engage with mantras to eliminate or reduce potential or ongoing obstacles, is available on FPMT.org’s Advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive’s Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book pages.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche writing out a mantra, Buddha Amitabha Pura Land, Washington, US, September 2016. Photo by Ven. Losang Sherab.

The Phagpa Chulung Rolpai Do Mantra card, the Six Syllables of Clairvoyance Mantra card, and other mantra cards are available through the Foundation Store:
https://shop.fpmt.org

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

A Daily Meditation on Shakyamuni Buddha, specifically compiled by Lama Zopa Rinpoche for beginner Buddhist practitioners, is now available in print from the Foundation Store. Last year, Lama Zopa Rinpoche reviewed and updated the previous edition with the help of Ven. Ailsa Cameron, a long-time editor for Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche reorganized many of the prayers based on his current way of doing them and, in particular, 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 merit—the two main causes for attaining realizations.

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.

Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, training seminars, and scholarships, 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 now 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 the way Rinpoche would like these specific mantras pronounced.

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!

Find the hard copy version of the The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment) with Additional Practices on the Foundation Store:
https://shop.fpmt.org/The-Method-to-Transform-a-Suffering-Life-into-Happiness-Including-Enlightenment-with-Additional-Practices-_p_3035.html

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

In the Living in the Path module “The Happiness of Dharma,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche gives teachings on the topic of the precious, or perfect, human rebirth and shows us how all our happiness comes from practicing Dharma.

“When constantly the mind is living in Dharma, you are constantly creating the cause of happiness, enlightenment,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches. “Then the happiness of future lives comes by the way. Even though you are not looking for that, the cause of that naturally happens. Even if you are totally detached from this life, but if you are practicing Dharma, then, by the way, the happiness of this life comes. It comes from Dharma.”

In this introductory video to the module, Ven. Thubten Dondrub provides a brief presentation of the importance of a perfect human rebirth and how real and lasting happiness comes from Dharma.

Watch “The Happiness of Dharma—An Introduction” on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/8HOK5rF9d4I

Ven. Thubten Dondrub attended his first Buddhist courses at Chenrezig Institute in Australia in 1976 and ordained in 1977. Since then he has offered service in a variety of FPMT centers and has taught extensively around the world, including leading the one-month November Course at Kopan Monastery in Nepal many times. He is currently resident teacher at Buddha House in Adelaide, Australia. Ven. Dondrub is an FPMT registered teacher.

Living in the Path is an online lamrim course taught by Lama Zopa Rinpoche available through the FPMT Online Learning Center:
https://onlinelearning.fpmt.org/course/index.php?categoryid=5

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

In the complimentary Living in the Path module “Cutting the Concept of Permanence,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche shows students that by living their lives with the wrong concept that thinks they are going to live forever, they will experience “a whole package of problems” and never practice Dharma, the cause of every happiness.

On the other hand, by getting rid of this “one mistake,” students can make their lives meaningful by generating bodhichitta and engaging in the practice of tonglen, a meditation that involves visualizing taking others’ suffering upon one’s self-cherishing and giving others all one’s happiness.

In this short introductory video to the module, Ven. René Feusi provides a brief presentation of the importance of understanding and reflecting upon the reality of impermanence—the fact that each one of us, everyone around us, and everything we come into contact with is impermanent, that is, changing moment by moment.

Watch “Cutting the Concept of Permanence—The Reality of Death” on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/SkZ3F1v_Gyc

Ven. René Feusi attended the one-month lamrim November course at Kopan Monastery in Nepal at the age of twenty and ordained six years later. From 1988-1992, he lived at Nalanda Monastery in France where he studied with Khensur Jampa Tegchok and also completed the nine traditional preliminary practices. From 1993 to 1995 he did a two-and-a-half year solitary retreat in Spain. He was resident teacher of Vajrapani Institute in California from 2002-2008. Ven. René is an FPMT registered teacher.

Living in the Path is an online lamrim course taught by Lama Zopa Rinpoche available through the FPMT Online Learning Center:
https://onlinelearning.fpmt.org/course/index.php?categoryid=5

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

FPMT Education Services offers over thirty ebooks in EPUB and MOBI formats through the Foundation Store and through the Kindle Store, with four ebook titles added recently: A Short Practice of Green Tara; A Daily Meditation on Shakyamuni Buddha; The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment) with Additional Practices; and The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment) with Additional Practices: A Commentary.

A Short Practice of Green Tara includes a short sadhana of Green Tara, commentary from Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and three versions of “Praises to the Twenty-One Taras.” While cultivating the wish that all of our endeavors ultimately benefit others, students can call upon the power of Tara to accomplish mundane and spiritual goals quickly. Whether you are looking for the right partner in a relationship or wishing to find the conditions for entering into a life of solitary retreat, the practice of Tara can help.

A Daily Meditation on Shakyamuni Buddha was specifically compiled by Lama Zopa Rinpoche for beginner Buddhist practitioners. Last year, Lama Zopa Rinpoche reviewed and updated the previous edition with the help of Ven. Ailsa Cameron, a long-time editor for Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. 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.

The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment) with Additional Practices was specifically compiled by Lama Zopa Rinpoche as an essential daily practice for his students and anyone else wishing to start their day, and all their activities, with a perfect Dharma intention and bodhichitta motivation. In addition to the motivation called “The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment),” the text includes a practice for blessing the speech and mantras to help students generate extensive merit and engage in deep purification throughout the day. Students will also benefit from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s commentary on the practice.

Find all of FPMT Education Services’ ebooks in the Foundation Store and the Kindle Store:
https://shop.fpmt.org/FPMT-eBooks-_c_631.html
https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-eBooks/

Watch Rinpoche teach from Bendigo, Australia, during the retreat at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, March 30-May 12. For details on the livestream:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Katoomba, Blue Mountains, Australia, June 2015. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

On March 30, the Australia 2018 retreat with Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins. The retreat, which takes place at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, will attract hundreds of FPMT students from around the world eager to receive teachings on Shantideva’s seminal text Bodhicaryavatara.

Two texts published by FPMT Education Services will be used in particular by retreatants: FPMT Retreat Prayer Book and The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment) with Additional Practices.

FPMT Retreat Prayer Book (available in ebook and PDF formats) was originally compiled in 2008 in preparation for the first Light of the Path retreat and has become a critical resource for those attending longer teaching events and retreats with Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Many students have also found it to be very useful when attending other teaching events, going on pilgrimage, and for their own personal daily practices and retreats. The collection is made up of prayers and practices drawn from various FPMT materials.

The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment) with Additional Practices (available in ebook and PDF formats) was specifically compiled by Lama Zopa Rinpoche as an essential daily practice for his students and anyone else wishing to start their day, and all their activities, with a perfect Dharma intention and bodhichitta motivation. In addition to the motivation called “The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment),” the text includes a practice for blessing the speech and mantras to help students generate extensive merit and engage in deep purification throughout the day.

The Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, Bendigo, Victoria, Australia, October 2014. Photo by Tom Kennedy.

Find FPMT Retreat Prayer Book and The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment) with Additional Practices in the Foundation Store:
shop.fpmt.org/

Watch Rinpoche teach from Bendigo, Australia, during the retreat at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, March 30-May 12. For details on the livestream:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche ascending the stairs of the Maratika Caves, Nepal, February 2016. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

In Cultivating Mindfulness of Bodhichitta in Daily Activities, Lama Zopa Rinpoche offers students prayers, visualizations, and advice to help transform daily activities—such as standing up, using the toilet, brushing one’s teeth, dressing, or ascending a staircase—into causes for enlightenment.

For example, Rinpoche teaches in the text: “When you go up a flight of stairs or up a hill (including on a roller coaster!), think: I am bringing all sentient beings to enlightenment.”

“Anyone who is seeking the state of omniscience needs to attend to the many methods for collecting merits and purifying delusions,” Rinpoche reminds students. “The Omniscient One, who was very skillful and had great compassion for us sentient beings, explained that even the activities that we normally do—such as eating, sleeping, sitting, walking, and doing our jobs—can become ways to collect unfathomable virtue and skies of merit. With mindfulness of bodhichitta, they can become not only beneficial to oneself, but beneficial to all sentient beings. The Buddha explained this to us who do not have a bodhichitta realization. This is how everything we do can be dedicated to become a cause of happiness for all sentient beings. This is something that we can practice immediately.”

Students can go deeper in to the topic of transforming daily activities into Dharma practice by studying “Bodhichitta Mindfulness,” a module within the Living in the Path course “Taking the Essence,” on the FPMT Online Learning Center.

“Bodhichitta Mindfulness” includes video teachings from Lama Zopa Rinpoche as well as an introduction to the topic by Ven. Sarah Thresher, additional readings, access to a discussion forum, and other helpful resources.

Find Cultivating Mindfulness of Bodhichitta in Daily Activities on the Foundation Store:
https://shop.fpmt.org/Cultivating-Mindfulness-of-Bodhichitta-in-Daily-Activities-PDF_p_2695.html

Living in the Path is an FPMT education program available through the FPMT Online Learning Center:
https://onlinelearning.fpmt.org/course/index.php?categoryid=5

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has said very strongly on many occasions that The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment) with Additional Practices is a practice that he would like all his students to do every day. In this updated edition, 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 the way Rinpoche would like these specific mantras pronounced. This updated practice is now available through the Foundation Store (hard copies forthcoming).

In addition, the many oral commentaries that Rinpoche has given on this practice have now been compiled and edited into a second booklet—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 on The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment), 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! The commentary is now available through the Foundation Store.

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche offering Most Secret Hayagriva oral transmissions, Drati Khangtsen, Sera Je Monastery, Bylakuppe, India, November 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

On various occasions, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has taught that receiving the oral transmission (lung) of prayers, practices, and texts is very beneficial. In addition to multiplying the benefits of one’s own recitations of the text by one hundred, the oral transmission creates positive imprints on one’s mind that lead to enlightenment.

“Kyabje Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche, [one of my teachers,] once gave the oral transmission of the Vajra Cutter Sutra at Land of Medicine Buddha in the United States,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche shared at the 100 Million Mani Retreat at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Pomaia, Italy, in October 2017. “At that time, Rinpoche said that if you have received the lung of the Vajra Cutter Sutra and then you recite it, you get the benefit of having recited it one hundred times.”

“The words leave a positive imprint on the mind and that brings you to enlightenment,” Rinpoche continued. “That brings realizations; that brings you to enlightenment. The lung doesn’t take much time, but the positive imprint left on the mind brings you to enlightenment. Then, you can do perfect work for sentient beings and are able to bring them to enlightenment. You have to know that. That is the basic thing; that is the main thing.”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche writing a daily motivation in a monk’s diary, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, April 2016. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Rinpoche also said that by keeping track of the oral transmissions one has received, one will know in the future if one is able to help support the continuity of the tradition by passing on the lung to someone else, should that be necessary.

“If you get any lung, long or short, write it down,” Rinpoche advised during the 2017 Light of the Path retreat in North Carolina in the United States. “It is very important to write it down so in the future you know which lungs you have received. In the future, some teachings may become very rare and other people will need that lung. At that time, you may have the karma to give the lung to other people, but if you didn’t receive the lineage, you can’t give them the lung because you have to have received the blessings—Buddha’s teachings from the Buddha. So write it down! It is very important for Sangha and lay people to write it down—every teaching, every lung you have received. Otherwise, you won’t know whether you have received it or not and so you won’t be able to help.”

Although most oral transmissions within FPMT must occur in person, you can receive the oral transmission of the Sutra of Golden Light online. Lama Zopa Rinpoche urges us to recite the Sutra of Golden Light every day. The benefits from reciting, listening to, or even hearing the name of the sutra are immeasurable, from eliminating conflict, terrorism, torture, and famine to achieving full enlightenment.

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.