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As 2013 enters its final months, the time is arriving to begin planning for 2014.
Since 1999, the Liberation Prison Project has produced the Liberation Calendar, a Tibetan lunar calendar which includes dates and information about more than thirty kinds of practice days and auspicious and inauspicious days for each month.
The calendar is prepared by astrologer Ngawang Thartho based on the Tibetan Medical and Astrological Institutes calendar, with additional advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Spiritual Director of FPMT, and Geshe Ngawang Dakpa, astrologer lama of FPMT’s Tse Chen Ling in San Francisco.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche reads texts and meditates while flying, November 22, 2013. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
A pilot once asked to have his photo taken with Lama Zopa Rinpoche. “I began to think about what [the pilot] could do for safety as he flies the plane, not only for his own safety but for the safety of the hundreds of passengers on the plane,” Rinpoche said. “I told the pilot that if you carry Buddha’s relics when you travel it has the power to stop any inauspicious thing that could cause danger and difficulties (such as it being the wrong astrological date, at the wrong time, etc.).
“I also suggested he carry the Diamond Cutter Sutra – it offers great protection. This sutra is the heart teaching of the 84,000 teachings of the Buddha, and is about realizing the perfection of wisdom, the teachings on emptiness. This realization is what liberates sentient beings from all the causes of samsara, which are delusion and karma, and even the subtle defilements. By eliminating these you can enlighten so many beings and liberate them from all the sufferings of samsara. All of this comes from this sutra, which teaches the path of wisdom realizing emptiness. So, it is a great blessing and protection to have this text on an airplane. …”
From “Advice for Flying,” posted on Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive, November 2005.
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.
Masters Program students (left to right): Ven. Tiziana Losa, Jacob Fisher, Yaniv Sagi, Marina Brucet, Hans Burghardt, Yumi Terada and Joan Dombón, Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, Pomaia, Italy, July 2013. Photo courtesy of ILTK.
The 2008-2013 class of the FPMT Masters Program have “just completed their final exams with the intention to enter retreat in 2014,” Olga Planken, Basic Program and Masters Program coordinator for FPMT Education Services, reported to Mandala this week.
Mandala recently featured an interview with five students from the 2008-2013 cohort before their exams had taken place, answering questions about the challenges and benefits of completing the extensive program and what they were looking forward to in the future:
Students from the 2008-2013 FPMT Masters Program cohort sit for their final exams, 2013. Photo courtesy of www.facebook.com/mpretreat.
What do you hope to gain from the culminating one-year retreat?
Marina: I really hope to be able to integrate some of the things we’ve learned during the Masters Program into myself, to gain deeper understanding of the Dharma and of myself, and to set the basis to stabilize and start transforming my mind at a deeper level, a task that I hope will not only be done during the retreat but will continue for the rest of my life. As I see it, it’s the only way to effectively be of benefit to others.
Yumi: I hope to be able to develop some inner qualities that can be really used to help others.
Ven. Tiziana: I feel the need now to have more time to reflect on what I have been studying. Reflection and meditation are essential to gain experience of what we have learned. I am feeling very fortunate to have this rare opportunity.
Jacob: The opportunity to really be in a perfect environment for meditation, and the chance to try and really become this Dharma that we’ve been studying.
Hans: The integration at a deeper level of some of the subjects we’ve studied, and an increased wish to do long retreats.
Masters Program students are now making preparations for their one-year retreat. As part of the preparations, seven of the students have created a fundraising campaign to make it possible for them to be supported during their retreat. So far they have raised €37,800 (US$50,800).
After Masters Program students successfully complete their retreat, they graduate from the program and are then eligible to apply to become FPMT registered teachers. As reported in “The Need for Qualified Teachers” (Mandala April-June 2013), FPMT registered teachers serve as much-needed instructors at FPMT centers around the world, offering authentic Dharma instruction and helping fulfill the wishes of Lama Zopa Rinpoche for education within FPMT. Several resident teachers in FPMT centers today were trained in the FPMT Masters Program’s first cohort, including Don Handrick, Thubten Norbu Ling, US; Sixte Vinçotte, Institut Vajra Yogini, France; Emily Hsu, Gyalwa Gyatso Buddhist Center, US; and Wai Cheong Kok, Vajrayana Institute, Australia.
Masters Program graduates also serve in various other roles to support FPMT education programs, such as teaching assistants, tutors, and coordinators for Masters and Basic Programs, both residential and online, and several teach Discovering Buddhism.
To learn more about the fundraising campaign to finance Masters Program students on their one-year retreats, visit their webpage: Support the rEvolution. You can also connect with the students on their Facebook page.
Mandala brings you news 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.
Yangsi Rinpoche, Maitripa College, Portland, Oregon, US, February 2009. Photo by Marc Sakamoto.
Founder and president of Maitripa College Yangsi Rinpoche talks about the development of mindfulness in the August-September 2007 issue of Mandala:
In order to have a faultless practice of calm abiding, we need to develop very strong concentration supported by very strong mindfulness and wisdom. Wisdom in this case refers to the function of mind called introspection, which acts as a kind of security guard for the mind – watching for faults or weaknesses that may arise in our concentration. We should train in the mindfulness possessing three qualities. Our mindfulness must be able to remember the aspect of our object of concentration. It must have the ability to hold that aspect, and it must not be distracted by other objects.
You should seek to develop a concentration that is stable and lasting. In order to be able to bring this about, mindfulness is very important. Of course, even in terms of our ordinary perception, every primary mind is accompanied by five determining factors, one of which is mindfulness. …
From Mandala August-September 2007
Lama Zopa Rinpoche after a trip to the local garden shop directing where the flowers go and creating beautiful offerings to all the gurus, buddhas and bodhisattvas and holy beings! Kachoe Dechen Ling, Aptos, California, November 17, 2013. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
[When] you go shopping, watch your motivation, prepare your motivation. When you are in the shop either fulfill the wishes of the guru or shop to benefit and serve other sentient beings. Think that the ultimate purpose is to fulfill the guru’s advice. So you buy these things to survive and to fulfill the wishes of the guru or benefit sentient beings. In this way shopping becomes the antidote to attachment, becomes virtuous activity, Dharma, and you collect extensive merit.
– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from the advice “Making Ordinary Life Actions Meaningful,” 2007
More advice can be found on the page “Advice from 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.
One of the altars at Kachoe Dechen Ling, Aptos, California, November 2013. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
“… All the suffering of samsara comes from the mind. Happiness, liberation and enlightenment come from the mind. Suffering comes from the unsubdued mind. Liberation and enlightenment come from the subdued mind, therefore, subduing the mind is essential. So what Buddha said is just an example, manifesting numberless forms naturally without effort – as impure forms to sentient beings who have an impure mind, and as pure forms to sentient beings with a pure mind,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrote to a new student in a letter recently posted to Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive’s “Lama Zopa Rinpoche Online Advice Book.”
The letter continues:
“In Buddhism, especially in Mahayana Buddhism, guru devotion is the root of the path to enlightenment. The Buddha’s 84,000 teachings have three levels. There are the Hinayana (Lesser Vehicle) teachings for the lower capable being. For those with greater intelligence and capacity, Buddha revealed the Mahayana Paramitayana teachings. Then for those with higher intelligence, merit or capacity, Buddha taught Mahayana Secret Mantra – Vajrayana.
“In Hinayana, we don’t look at the guru as a buddha, but we respect the guru as if he is a buddha and we obey the guru, the abbot who grants ordination and gives teachings. In Mahayana Paramitayana, we look at the guru as a buddha, having no mistakes but only qualities. In tantra, on that basis – seeing the guru as a buddha – we look at the guru in the pure form of a buddha, we look at the essence as a buddha.
“Obedience is most important, otherwise we cannot achieve realizations; we cannot achieve enlightenment. …”
You can read the entire letter on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website.
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.
This sutra from the “Vinaya Basket, ” Sutra on What is Most Precious to a Monk, discusses the meaning of and motivations for monastic engagement, exploring what kind of mind constitutes one of monastic practice. It explains why that which a monk holds most dear is his mind of renunciation and commitment to his vows.
By Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Zopa Rinpoche
To love oneself is not contradictory to what Mahayana Buddhism teaches. The Mahayana teachings are not saying one should not love oneself. Renouncing oneself and cherishing others is not contradictory to loving yourself. In fact, practicing the Mahayana teaching, bodhichitta, is the best way to love yourself, to take care of yourself.
Whatever we do with our body, speech, and mind is for happiness. Even the activities of the tiniest insects, like the ants we see running around and keeping so busy, are also to achieve happiness. By looking at ourselves and at other living beings, we can see that it is the same: whatever we do is to achieve happiness.
A “problem” is what we do not want to experience and “happiness” is what we want to achieve. With this mind we can stop the problems, stop all the undesirable experiences, and with this mind we can achieve every happiness. Why is this? Because problems and happiness do not come from outside. The creator of problems and happiness is oneself in past lives. Therefore, with this mind all our problems can be stopped and we can achieve temporal day-to-day happiness and ultimate happiness, full enlightenment. …
From Mandala April-May 2006
Lama Yeshe: “You’re a fish swimming through water.” Photo by Carol Royce-Wilder.
If you recognize non-duality, you’ll have no fear. All fear and insecurity comes from not being realistic, from the wrong conception that holds fearful objects as concrete self-entities. A story from the life of Tibet’s great yogi, Jetsun Milarepa, illustrates this point.
Once Milarepa left his cave to collect wood, and when he returned, he saw a terrifying face with big eyes glaring at him. It blew his mind. But he looked carefully at the face and meditated on it as illusory, and later wrote a song about this experience. By removing the conception that identified that horrible image as a concrete self-entity, it disappeared. This is not a fairy tale; this is a meditator’s experience.
People scare themselves with thoughts of ghosts and demons. It is all superstition, the wrong conception believing in a self-entity There’s no such thing. But when you have a superstitious belief, for some reason it manifests. So you say, “It’s real. I saw it.” What you you saw is important? That’s completely ridiculous. What you see is absolutely unimportant. You need to know that. People in the West set incredible store by what they see; they really do believe that seeing is believing, that what they see is real. This basic misconception also engenders a kind of pride: “I saw that he is this, therefore, he is this.” “I saw” makes your ego proud. This is a completely wrong conception.
From Mandala February-March 2006
FPMT Education Services is happy to offer a free commentary on the Praise to the Twenty-One Taras by Ven. Geshe Dawö.
This commentary was based on the commentary by Ngulchu Dhamabadhra called the A Bouquet of Utpala Flowers Captivating Minds, and other sources.
It was later supplemented with passages from the First Dalai Lama’s commentary on the Twenty-one Taras, called Precious Garland, as well as some additional quotes from Ngulchu’s commentary.
You may download the eBook version from the FPMT Foundation Store.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche, California, September 2013. Photo by Chris Majors.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche has been diligently working on a complete daily practice for students for several years. FPMT Education Services is very pleased to announce that this advice, Daily Meditation, is now available. This practice is the basis of what students, from new to advanced, will be advised to undertake as daily practice. This is an essential practice for all students.
Every day we have the opportunity to set our aspirations clearly before we engage with the world. As Lama Zopa Rinpoche advises, “In everyday life after the eyes open [on waking] set a Dharma intention and especially bodhichitta [motivation] by thinking, ‘Until I achieve enlightenment and until I die, especially today, may the activities of my body, speech and mind—listening, reflecting, meditation practice, walking, sleeping, eating, sitting, working and so forth not become the cause of suffering and become the cause of happiness, especially the cause of full enlightenment, i.e. the method to bring happiness to sentient beings.’”
In this essential practice, Daily Meditation, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has carefully and kindly 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.
The new Daily Meditation is a revision of the Morning Prayers included in Essential Buddhist Prayers V1. This meditation includes a new version of the prayer A Direct Meditation on the Graduated Path, Containing all the Important Meanings translated by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, as well as a new translation of selected verses from Shantideva’s Bodhisattvacharyavatara by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Other additions and new arrangements have been made to this meditation – it is a unique new practice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Available now as an eBook (non-reflowable PDF), a small beautiful hard-copy is forthcoming soon.
You may also read Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s most recent advice for Actualizing Realizations on the Path.
The Lam-Rim Merit Field.
The existence of the complete Buddhist path to enlightenment in our world depends solely upon those who have generated both the intellectual understanding of the teachings and the realizations of the path within their minds. Those who have done this are the lineage lamas.
During the practice of Lama Chopa, we invoke all the lamas of the graduated path lineage beginning with Shakyamuni Buddha himself, extending to our present direct teachers who have shown us the path. We pay homage to them, make offerings, and request each of them to please bless our minds with the same realizations that they themselves have generated. By offering sincere, heartfelt requests, we make our minds ripe to receive the full blessings of this precious lineage and quickly actualize the realizations we need to attain enlightenment. If we wish to experience realizations quickly, the practice of Lama Chopa is indispensable.
We are pleased to announce a new eBook edition of the Lama Chopa without the Jorcho practices. It contains the essential additional prayers recommended by Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
You can also read Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s commentary on this important practice.