Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition
The FPMT is an organization devoted to preserving and spreading Mahayana Buddhism worldwide by creating opportunities to listen, reflect, meditate, practice and actualize the unmistaken teachings of the Buddha and based on that experience spreading the Dharma to sentient beings. We provide integrated education through which people’s minds and hearts can be transformed into their highest potential for the benefit of others, inspired by an attitude of universal responsibility and service. We are committed to creating harmonious environments and helping all beings develop their full potential of infinite wisdom and compassion. Our organization is based on the Buddhist tradition of Lama Tsongkhapa of Tibet as taught to us by our founders Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche.
Die Stiftung zur Erhaltung der Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) ist eine Organisation, die sich weltweit für die Erhaltung und Verbreitung des Mahayana-Buddhismus einsetzt, indem sie Möglichkeiten schafft, den makellosen Lehren des Buddha zuzuhören, über sie zur reflektieren und zu meditieren und auf der Grundlage dieser Erfahrung das Dharma unter den Lebewesen zu verbreiten.
Wir bieten integrierte Schulungswege an, durch denen der Geist und das Herz der Menschen in ihr höchstes Potential verwandelt werden zum Wohl der anderen – inspiriert durch eine Haltung der universellen Verantwortung und dem Wunsch zu dienen. Wir haben uns verpflichtet, harmonische Umgebungen zu schaffen und allen Wesen zu helfen, ihr volles Potenzial unendlicher Weisheit und grenzenlosen Mitgefühls zu verwirklichen.
Unsere Organisation basiert auf der buddhistischen Tradition von Lama Tsongkhapa von Tibet, so wie sie uns von unseren Gründern Lama Thubten Yeshe und Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche gelehrt wird.
La Fundación para la preservación de la tradición Mahayana (FPMT) es una organización que se dedica a preservar y difundir el budismo Mahayana en todo el mundo, creando oportunidades para escuchar, reflexionar, meditar, practicar y actualizar las enseñanzas inconfundibles de Buda y en base a esa experiencia difundir el Dharma a los seres.
Proporcionamos una educación integrada a través de la cual las mentes y los corazones de las personas se pueden transformar en su mayor potencial para el beneficio de los demás, inspirados por una actitud de responsabilidad y servicio universales. Estamos comprometidos a crear ambientes armoniosos y ayudar a todos los seres a desarrollar todo su potencial de infinita sabiduría y compasión.
Nuestra organización se basa en la tradición budista de Lama Tsongkhapa del Tíbet como nos lo enseñaron nuestros fundadores Lama Thubten Yeshe y Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
A continuación puede ver una lista de los centros y sus páginas web en su lengua preferida.
L’organisation de la FPMT a pour vocation la préservation et la diffusion du bouddhisme du mahayana dans le monde entier. Elle offre l’opportunité d’écouter, de réfléchir, de méditer, de pratiquer et de réaliser les enseignements excellents du Bouddha, pour ensuite transmettre le Dharma à tous les êtres. Nous proposons une formation intégrée grâce à laquelle le cœur et l’esprit de chacun peuvent accomplir leur potentiel le plus élevé pour le bien d’autrui, inspirés par le sens du service et une responsabilité universelle. Nous nous engageons à créer un environnement harmonieux et à aider tous les êtres à épanouir leur potentiel illimité de compassion et de sagesse. Notre organisation s’appuie sur la tradition guéloukpa de Lama Tsongkhapa du Tibet, telle qu’elle a été enseignée par nos fondateurs Lama Thoubtèn Yéshé et Lama Zopa Rinpoché.
L’FPMT è un organizzazione il cui scopo è preservare e diffondere il Buddhismo Mahayana nel mondo, creando occasioni di ascolto, riflessione, meditazione e pratica dei perfetti insegnamenti del Buddha, al fine di attualizzare e diffondere il Dharma fra tutti gli esseri senzienti.
Offriamo un’educazione integrata, che può trasformare la mente e i cuori delle persone nel loro massimo potenziale, per il beneficio di tutti gli esseri, ispirati da un’attitudine di responsabilità universale e di servizio.
Il nostro obiettivo è quello di creare contesti armoniosi e aiutare tutti gli esseri a sviluppare in modo completo le proprie potenzialità di infinita saggezza e compassione.
La nostra organizzazione si basa sulla tradizione buddhista di Lama Tsongkhapa del Tibet, così come ci è stata insegnata dai nostri fondatori Lama Thubten Yeshe e Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Di seguito potete trovare un elenco dei centri e dei loro siti nella lingua da voi prescelta.
“护持大乘法脉基金会”( 英文简称：FPMT。全名：Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition) 是一个致力于护持和弘扬大乘佛法的国际佛教组织。我们提供听闻，思维，禅修，修行和实证佛陀无误教法的机会，以便让一切众生都能够享受佛法的指引和滋润。
護持大乘法脈基金會”（ 英文簡稱：FPMT。全名：Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition ）是一個致力於護持和弘揚大乘佛法的國際佛教組織。我們提供聽聞，思維，禪修，修行和實證佛陀無誤教法的機會，以便讓一切眾生都能夠享受佛法的指引和滋潤。
Don’t forget that the starving person preoccupied by hunger and the person obsessing over what to buy next at the supermarket are basically the same. Mentally, rich and poor are equally disturbed, and, fundamentally, one is as unhappy as the other.
The Foundation Store is FPMT’s online shop and features a vast selection of Buddhist study and practice materials written or recommended by our lineage gurus. These items include homestudy programs, prayers and practices in PDF or eBook format, materials for children, and other resources to support practitioners.
Items displayed in the shop are made available for Dharma practice and educational purposes, and never for the purpose of profiting from their sale. Please read FPMT Foundation Store Policy Regarding Dharma Items for more information.
FPMT Education Services would like to remind you that we have several new and updated practice materials that are essential resources for FPMT students.
FPMT Retreat Prayer Book
The FPMT Retreat Prayer Book 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 various FPMT prayers and practices.
A recently updated and revised version of this prayer book is now available.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche reading from The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness, April 2016. Photo by Bill Kane.
The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness
Included in the revised FPMT Retreat Prayer Book was an update to The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment), a practice on which Lama Zopa Rinpoche has put a great deal of emphasis as essential for all FPMT students.
In this practice, Rinpoche has carefully compiled, and in many cases provided translation for, the prayers, practices, and meditations needed to start one’s day or activities with a perfect Dharma intention and bodhichitta motivation. While mornings are an ideal time to set up one’s aspirations for the day, students are encouraged to engage in this practice whenever one is able.
This practice is available for free as a downloadable PDF or ebook from the FPMT Foundation Store.
Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga
Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga is a particularly powerful practice for receiving the blessings of one’s personal teacher and developing the realization of guru devotion.
Also known as the Hundred Deities of Tushita (Ganden Lha Gyama), it is a seven-limb practice related to Lama Tsongkhapa, a great Tibetan scholar, saint, and yogi of the 14th century. To supplement and complete this short text, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has added a preliminary practice of the “Four Immeasurable Thoughts,” the lam-rim prayer “Foundation of All Good Qualities” by Lama Tsongkhapa, and two visualizations to do while reciting the “Five-Line Migtsema Prayer to Lama Tsongkhapa,” one for purifying negative karmas and one for achieving seven special types of wisdom. The appendices consist of short teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche on how to do extensive meditations on making offerings, confessing, and rejoicing.
This is a suitable practice text for the preliminary practice of collecting 100,000 recitations of the Migtsema prayer.
Ngulchu Dharmabhadra’s Thirty-Five Buddhas Practice
Ngulchu Dharmabhadra’s The Flowing Water of the Ganga: A Thorough Praise of the Thirty-Five Sugatas is a versified homage to the Thirty-Five Confession Buddhas that has been expanded by Lama Zopa Rinpoche to include the recitation of the names of the Medicine Buddhas, as well as the confession prayer from the “Bodhisattva’s Confession of Moral Downfalls” (also known as the “Confession of Downfalls to the Thirty-Five Buddhas”).
Several authentic lineages for visualizing the Thirty-Five Confession Buddhas exist within the Gelug tradition. These include: a system stemming from Nagarjuna and Taranatha; a system stemming from Lama Tsongkhapa; and a system taught by teachers such as Sakya Pandita and explained by Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. This latter system of visualization as taught by Pabongka, which is based on the five types (or families) of buddhas, is the commonly practiced version in the FPMT.
The Flowing Water of the Ganga, on the other hand, describes these buddhas according to Nagarjuna’s tradition of visualization. The text also describes the color of the buddhas, their hand implements, the pure lands in which the buddhas reside, as well as the specific negative karmas that the recitation of their names purify.
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.
Sun of Devotion, Stream of Blessings is the record of a remarkable series of powerful and clear Dharma teachings given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche to students in Leeds and London, United Kingdom, in 2014. In this book, Rinpoche explains how to take care of the mind so that our happiness is in our own hands, gives profound teachings on the Buddhist philosophy of emptiness, and discusses the need for ethics and a solid refuge. He explains how to cut the root of samsara, explores why practicing certain tantras is important and especially emphasizes how the guru is the most powerful object of our Dharma practice. There are also chapters on the great qualities of Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drönme (Khadro-la) and the shortcomings of practicing Dolgyal.
Three hundred participants are attending Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s 2016 Light of the Path Retreat in North Carolina. This includes 40 ordained Sangha and directors, spiritual program coordinators, and students from various countries around the world. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Light of the Path Retreat 2016 is four days from completion in Black Mountain, North Carolina. This retreat is the fourth in a series of teaching retreats led by Lama Zopa Rinpoche and hosted by FPMT’s Kadampa Center.
While 300 individuals are attending the retreat, many others are tuning in on YouTube and FPMT’s livestream channel from home.
Additionally, English transcription of the teachings are being streamed in real time, which students can open in a second window and watch alongside the live teaching. This service has been particularly useful for deaf and students hard of hearing. We received one comment explaining, “You are the first group that offers accommodations for the deaf and hard of hearing. I am in tears that finally a Tibetan Buddhist organization is accommodating deaf and hard of hearing citizens. Thank you so much for this.” Recorded video, audio and transcripts of the teachings are also posted as they become available.
The FPMT Media Team has done incredible work facilitating all of these resources for students, and Kadampa Center has organized a beautiful retreat for on-site participants and students at home.
FPMT Education Services recently made available a revised edition of the FPMT Retreat Prayer Book, which is an essential resource for those attending longer teaching events and retreats with Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Together with many additional resources, the Living in the Path online program has been created from the Light of the Path retreat teachings. Organized into structured modules, you will find this program on the FPMT Online Learning Center.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche giving the oral transmission of the Vajra Cutter Sutra at the Mahabodhi Temple, Bodhgaya, India, March 2015. Photo by Ven. Losang Sherab.
FPMT Education Services would like to invite you to take advantage of the sutras and dharanis available to you for free download on FPMT.org.
Students read the Golden Light Sutra in front of Lama Yeshe’s Stupa, Tushita Meditation Centre, Dharamsala, India, June 13, 2014. Photo courtesy of Tushita Meditation Centre.
Sutras are records of teachings given by the historical Buddha. The Buddha’s discourses were memorized by his disciples and later written down in various languages, the most complete collections of teachings being in Pali and Sanskrit.
Because sutras contain the actual words spoken by the Buddha, by reproducing his speech ourselves during sutra recitations, our voice becomes a conduit for Buddha’s teachings in the world.
A special set of sutras called dharmaparyayas or “transformative teachings,” including the Sanghata Sutra, function to transform those who hear, recite or write out them in particular ways, in the same way as meeting a buddha in the flesh.
Dharanis also contain the essence of a teaching, but are often compared to mantras due to their intended ritual vocalization. Generally, however, dharanis are longer than mantras and are more likely to have intelligible phrases, like sutras. The word dharani is from a Sanskrit root word that means “to hold or maintain.” Dharanis are said to have the power to heal and protect from harm.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche reciting the Sutra of Golden Light for long-time student Anila Ann McNeil, who passed away February 2015, Bodhgaya, India. Photo by Ven. Sarah Thresher.
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 Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga is a particularly powerful practice for receiving the blessings of one’s personal teacher and developing the realization of guru devotion.
Also known as the Hundred Deities of Tushita (Ganden Lha Gyama), it is a seven-limb practice related to Lama Tsongkhapa, a great Tibetan scholar, saint, and yogi of the 14th century. To supplement and complete this short text, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has added a preliminary practice of the “Four Immeasurable Thoughts,” the lam-rim prayer “Foundation of All Good Qualities” by Lama Tsongkhapa, and two visualizations to do while reciting the “Five-Line Migtsema Prayer to Lama Tsongkhapa,” one for purifying negative karmas and one for achieving seven special types of wisdom. The appendices consist of short teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche on how to do extensive meditations on making offerings, confessing, and rejoicing.
This is a suitable practice text for the preliminary practice of collecting 100,000 recitations of the Migtsema prayer.
FPMT Education Services is pleased to release a revised version of this practice, based on Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s latest advice. This updated edition is available as a downloadable PDF from the FPMT 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.
Recently, FPMT Education Services announced a revision of the FPMT Retreat Prayer Book, a critical resource for those attending longer teaching events and retreats with Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Included in this revision was an update to The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment), a practice on which Lama Zopa Rinpoche has put a great deal of emphasis as essential for all FPMT students.
In this practice, Rinpoche has carefully compiled, and in many cases provided translation for, the prayers, practices, and meditations needed to start one’s day, or activities, with a perfect Dharma intention and bodhichitta motivation. While mornings are an ideal time to set up one’s aspirations for the day, students are encouraged to engage in this practice at any time, whenever one is able.
This practice is available for free as a downloadable PDF or eBook from the FPMT Foundation Store. We hope that you will take a moment to update your files with this updated version.
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.
Chokhor Duchen, one of the four great holy days of the Tibetan Buddhist calendar, takes place this year on Saturday, August 6.
Also known as the Festival of Turning the Wheel of Dharma, Chokhor Duchen commemorates the anniversary upon which Shakyamuni Buddha first began teaching the Dharma. For seven weeks after his enlightenment, the Buddha did not teach. After this period, Indra and Brahma offered a Dharmachakra and a conch shell and requested Shakyamuni to teach. Accepting, Buddha Shakyamuni turned the Wheel of Dharma for the first time at Sarnath by teaching on the four noble truths.
Specific advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche for practices to do on Buddha Multiplying Days such as Chokhor Duchen can be found here, including new advice to recite the Sutra for Remembering the Three Jewels.
Chokhor Duchen also commemorates FPMT’s International Sangha Day!
Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Sangha at Light of the Path retreat, 2014
Here is how you can celebrate monastics on Sangha Day:
Please keep in mind: According to the late 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 Buddha Days and other auspicious dates according to the time in India.
If you decide to recite the Sutra of Golden Light on this special day, you might like to report your recitations using the facility on the FPMT website, which you can find on the Sutra of Golden Light reporting page.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at the Light of the Path Retreat, May 2014, Black Mountain, North Carolina, US. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
The FPMT Retreat Prayer Book 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.
In preparation for the Light of the Path Retreat 2016, the FPMT Education Services and Translation Service teams have spent the last few months carefully updating the prayer book based on Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice and FPMT’s most current materials. As a result, the order of the prayers contained in particular practices has changed, revisions to the Tibetan and Sanskrit phonetics have been incorporated, and updates to some translations have been included. Also, the colophons have been expanded significantly to provide clear indication of which texts were used and any related details.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche advised many changes for this edition, which reflect Rinpoche’s continuous efforts to ensure that we do these practices as perfectly as possible. In addition, Rinpoche, who has always placed great emphasis on the importance of accurate translations, has advised us to change some familiar, but not entirely accurate, terms.
Rinpoche has also recently been stressing the importance of preserving the correct pronunciation of mantras, as reflected in Tibetan transliterations of Sanskrit. For this reason, in the sections of “Blessing the Speech” and “Daily Mantras,” we have temporarily implemented a simple system using double vowels to convey long vowel sounds. Cha, chha, and ja have been changed to tsa, tsha, and dza to better correspond with Rinpoche’s pronunciation of these letters. With Rinpoche’s instructions in mind, FPMT Translation Services will, in the coming months, review whether to use the standard international system for writing Sanskrit, which entails the use of diacritics, or to develop some variation of this international system.
The changes in this edition also reflect the on-going work of FPMT Translation Services to not only develop a standard FPMT glossary of translation terms, but to begin the work of standardizing the translations of common prayers. This work is essential as the prayers and practices that make up this book, as well as many other FPMT practice materials, are a conglomerate of translations completed over multiple decades by a host of translators. In addition, FPMT Translation Services is beginning the work of checking the translations of these prayers and practices for accuracy against the original Tibetan. This will be ongoing and extensive work that is expected to take many years.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at the Light of the Path Retreat, May 2014, Black Mountain, North Carolina, US. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
All the changes and corrections made to this edition that did not come directly from the advice of Lama Zopa Rinpoche are the result of extensive discussions. The FPMT Education Services and Translation Services teams accept full responsibility for any mistakes made and welcome your suggestions and feedback. We ask for your patience and understanding that the work of translating Buddhism into English, as well as into many other languages, is still in its initial phase and is going to be an ongoing process, perhaps for centuries to come.
If you have purchased the Retreat Prayer Book in the past from the Foundation Store, you will soon receive this new version as a PDF via email.
We are only making the PDF version of the book available, confident that this will afford students and facilitators greater ease in accessing this text. Also, working in digital formats allows us to more easily make updates indicated by Lama Zopa Rinpoche and hastens the distribution of updated editions to students.
If you would like more information on the changes made, or need more information about printing the PDF for your needs, please don’t hesitate to contact us at education@fpmt.org.
Lama Atisha (980-1054 C.E.) introduced the lojong, also known as “mind training” or “thought transformation,” tradition of Mahayana practice in Tibet. Lojong teachings are quintessential Mahayana teachings in that their aim is to eliminate both the self-cherishing attitude and self-grasping. Like the stages of the path teachings, the mind training tradition is one that is embraced by all Tibetan lineages.
The Eight Verses of Thought Transformation is one of the most important texts from the lojong genre. This root text was written by the eleventh-century meditator Langri Tangpa Dorje Senghe. His Holiness the Dalai Lama refers to this work as one of the main sources of his own inspiration and includes it in his daily meditations.
Geshe Chekhawa wrote The Seven-Point Thought Transformation in the 12th century as an explanation of lojong. These teachings, like all from this tradition, involve refining and purifying one’s motivations and attitudes as a means for transforming thoughts into virtue. FPMT Education Services recently made this precious text available as a free download.
You can watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche teach, “Lojong: The Quickest Way to Lam-rim Realizations.”
His Holiness the Dalai Lama at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, Pomaia, Italy, June 13, 2014. Photo by Olivier Adam.
Yesterday, on July 6, the world celebrated another year of life for His Holiness the Dalai Lama who brings so much joy and inspiration with his message of of universal compassion and human decency.
FPMT Education Services makes many resources available to help celebrate and praise His Holiness.
When His Holiness was nineteen years old he composed a Chenrezig guru yoga sadhana called, 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, published by Wisdom Publications.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama at Chenrezig Institute, Eudlo, Queensland, Australia, June 2011. Photo by Bonnie Jenkins.
Prayers and Praise for His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Long life prayers to one’s guru purify mistakes that occur in relation to the teacher, and create the causes and conditions to continue to receive benefit from that teacher for a very long time.
“Prayers for 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 a “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 the Dalai Lama’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.
“Praises and Requests to His Holiness the Dalai Lama” is a collection of praises, comments, and requests by Lama Zopa Rinpoche concerning His Holiness the Dalai Lama available on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive Online Advice Book.
FPMT Education Services wishes His Holiness a very auspicious 81st birthday and sincerely requests His Holiness to live for a very long time to continue bringing his universal message of compassion to the world.
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 makes available several resources for those wishing to learn the advised pronunciations of FPMT standard prayers, practices, and mantras.
Lama Chöpa
“Practicing this Guru Puja, which is an integration of the three deities, makes it much easier to achieve enlightenment in a brief life of this degenerated time. Doing this practice every day, with purification and many infinite skies of merit, brings the mind closer to the path to enlightenment and closer to enlightenment itself, and so much closer to freeing all sentient beings from obscurations and suffering and leading them to enlightenment. Putting the meaning of this into practice in one’s life makes each day extremely rich and worthwhile.” — Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Please stay tuned the release of Lama Zopa Rinpoche Mantra Recitations Volume 3 which is forthcoming from FPMT Education Services.
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 blessing animals at the Fattoria della Pace Ippoasi, an animal sanctuary run by young vegans near ILTK, Italy, June 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Animal liberation is a specific practice done for animals which would otherwise be killed. The practice involves taking the animals-in-danger around holy objects to leave positive imprints in their minds, reciting mantras for them, blessing water to sprinkle onto their bodies, and then releasing them. Animal blessings involve blessing any animal with mantras or a holy object. Animal liberation and animal blessings are two ways to benefit animals, bless their minds, and allow them to make a connection with the Dharma. Animal liberation practice is an incredible practice for anyone who has illnesses or is experiencing life obstacles.
Resident sheep at Animal Liberation Sanctuary, Kopan, Nepal, January 2014. Photo courtesy of Phil Hunt.
FPMT Education Services publishes a booklet from Lama Zopa Rinpoche about how to benefit animals, including the animal liberation practice, Liberating Animals from Danger and Death, in booklet and eReader formats. A shorter version is also available.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche designed Animal Liberation Tools, unique bug catchers that bless small animals before their release.
“Like yourself, all sentient beings want happiness and no not want suffering, problems or discomfort.” – Lama Zopa Rinpoche
During the animal liberation practice, animals are carried around holy objects so the worms can create merit.
Benefiting animals in any way possible is a high priority for FPMT and one of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Vast Visions for the organization.
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.
It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives. If we find we cannot help others, the least we can do is to not harm them.
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