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Study & Practice News
Over the years, Mandala has explored the issue of vegetarianism and the question of whether or not to eat meat. But with a growing awareness of issues of animal cruelty and environmental concerns connected to the production of dairy products and eggs, many FPMT students have taken up the practice of veganism, including Nicholas Ribush, director of the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. In this issue’s online edition, Nick explains his motivations for his decision in “On Becoming a Vegan.”
At the 2009 CPMT meeting in France, Nick asked Rinpoche about veganism, to which Rinpoche gives an expansive and motivational response.
Nick Ribush: Rinpoche, how do you feel about FPMT promoting a policy of not only vegetarianism, but also veganism, because of the cruelty to animals inherent in the production of dairy products and so forth?
Lama Zopa Rinpoche: The reality is that we cannot live without harming others. There’s no way we can survive without others being harmed, killed. We can’t survive for even a day without causing suffering to others.
This is how life is in samsara and that’s why the ultimate answer is to get out of samsara, to be liberated from it. Only when you free yourself from samsara by actualizing the remedy, the true path, the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, which directly terminates the delusions, the disturbing thought obscurations, and the negative imprints, the seeds of delusion, will you no longer have to reincarnate, no longer have to go through the cycle of death and rebirth, experiencing all the sufferings of the six realms, one after the other.
It’s only when you’re liberated from samsara that others don’t have to suffer for your happiness, only then that others don’t have to be harmed or killed in order for you to survive. Therefore, actualizing the path is of the utmost urgency; that’s the emergency …
Read the full teaching as part of Mandala‘s July-September 2013 online content …
FPMT Education Services is pleased to announce three new resources for students who have received initiation into the practice of Gyälwa Gyatso.
Tsog of the Great Compassionate One Gyälwa Gyatso is a tsog offering practice written by Lama Yeshe in 1983 at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, Italy, at the request of his Western students who had obtained the Gyalwa Gyatso empowerment. Available in eBook, booklet letter and A4 formats.
Requesting and Dedication Prayers of Chenrezig Gyälwa Gyatso, by Gung-thang Konchog Tanpai Dronme and Changkya Rolpai Dorje, is a collection of prayers meant to be read in conjunction with the sadhanas of Gyalwa Gyatso. For those with the initiation of GyälwaGyatso, who wish to strengthen their practice, this collection is essential. Available in eBook, booklet letter and A4 formats.
A Short Daily Practice of GyälwaGyatso, written by Gung-thang Konchog Tanpai Dronme, was originally rendered into English by Ven. George Churinoff and the residents of Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, Pomaia, Italy, on the auspicious occasion of the Gyälwa Gyatso empowerment by His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, October 1982. Originally published in 1999, a newly updated 2013 edition is now available. Available in eBook, booklet letter and A4 formats.
Long Life Puja at Kopan Monastery, April 2013. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.In April we received an update from Ven. Roger Kunsang concerning new advice received for prayers and practices students of Lama Zopa Rinpoche should engage in fo Rinpoche’s health.
One of the practices recommended is the recitation of the Sutra of Golden Light. Recitation of this sutra is being organized at some of the great monasteries, but you can also participate by reciting this precious sutra and dedicating to Rinpoche’s long and stable life.
You can send your number of recitations to Claire Isitt at the end of each month, and all prayers and practices will be offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
The worship of the Seven Medicine Buddhas is a spiritual method to alleviate sickness, poverty, conflict and all the other miseries that inevitably afflict beings living in the world. Despite the almost miraculous recent advances in medicine and other technologies, the basic realities of human existence are as true today as they were 2,500 years ago, when the Buddha recommended that we face up to them.
This puja (the longest of all the Medicine Buddha pujas) was translated at the request of Lama Zopa Rinpoche by Professor John Newman.
We are happy to now make this puja available as a PDF download for your Kindle, iPad or other digital device.
Saka Dawa takes place this year on Friday/Saturday, May 24/25.
Please keep in mind: 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 Buddha Days and other auspicious dates according to the time in India.
I thought you might like a reminder of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recommended practices for this special day. You can find Rinpoche’s advice on this topic collected here (on Rinpoche’s Advice page, under Buddha Multiplying Days), and a calendar of all the holy days here.
Special thanks to the Liberation Prison Project for preparing the Tibetan Calendar.
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. You can also find many other sutra texts available for free download on the FPMT Education Services’ Sutras page.
New Products Available at the FPMT Foundation Store!
- Long Life Lama Chopa with Request to the Dakinis eBook—Please note, this is one of the current recommended practices for Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s health.
- Sixteen Arhats Puja available as eBook as well as booklet letter and A4 formats.
- The Yoga of the Three Purifications of Shri Chakrasamvara available as eBook as well as booklet letter and A4 formats.
- We have updated a short Medicine Buddha Sadhana.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Bodhgaya, 1974. Image courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
“In January 1974 His Holiness the Dalai Lama bestowed the Kalachakra (Wheel of Time) initiation for the fifth time in his life, and the third since leaving Tibet,” writes Adele Hulse, author of Big Love, the forthcoming biography of FPMT founder Lama Thubten Yeshe. Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive will publish Big Love later this year and has been sharing excerpts from the book on their Big Love blog. The following is from a recent post:
The profound Kalachakra Tantra, a pathway to full enlightenment, contains elements of astrology, medicine, and mathematics. Over 100,000 Tibetans descended on Bodhgaya. They came by train, bus, rickshaw, and on foot from many places inside and outside India: Dharamsala, Darjeeling, Dalhousie, Mysore, and Bangalore; from Ladakh, Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, and Tibet, many of them wearing local costumes and jewelry. Tent cities sprang up with bustling restaurants serving all types of Tibetan and Indian food — momos (Tibetan meat dumplings), thukpa (Tibetan meat stew), samosas, chai, and the like — alongside market stalls selling clothes, religious objects, and antiques. It was a scene out of National Geographic magazine.
Several hundred Westerners also poured into Bodhgaya for the initiation. Many of them stayed in the Tibetan tent-restaurants, which allowed people to sleep on the wide benches at night. The hippies in their motley garb mixed easily with the wild folk from the mountains, the men in sheepskin trousers, their long plaits woven with red ribbon. For many Tibetans it was their first sight of the Dalai Lama. They prostrated and cried loudly. All day and all night pilgrims circumambulated the Mahabodhi stupa on its three different walkways, many prostrating all the way around.
Everybody at Kopan who could get to Bodhgaya went there. When asked to explain the Kalachakra initiation, Lama Yeshe became very serious, telling the students this was not something they should take lightly. …
Read the entire post by Adele Hulse — which includes Lama Yeshe’s teaching to Westerners in preparation for the initiation — on the Big Love blog.
We are happy to announce the publication of a new eBook, The Wish-fulfilling Gem Enhancing the Buddha’s Doctrine, a Method for Making Offerings and Prayers to Guru Shakyamuni Buddha and the Sixteen Arhats by Yeshe Gyaltsen which includes a purification practice and is suitable to be performed by anyone.
This practice is also available in A4 and letter booklet formats.
“It has greater blessings to pray to the kind compassionate Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, the Founder, who is caring with a loving mind for us migratory beings who are in the end of the five-hundred age time. He left the Sixteen Arhats as a regent of himself not to pass away and to be the Savior for us sentient beings.
The benefits of making offerings and prayers to the Sixteen Arhats are:
1. All the Victorious Ones (Buddhas) are pleased.
2. Anyone who correctly practices it will have no obstacles.
3. One will be able to abide in pure morality.
4. It increases one’s scriptural understanding and realization.
5. One will have perfect inner and outer conditions to practice Dharma.
6. One will not be overwhelmed by untimely death and will have a long life.
7. The community of Sangha will be increased.
8. The study and practice of the Tripitaka (Three Baskets) will increase.
And so forth, there are infinite benefits one will enjoy until enlightenment is achieved.”
Translated by Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Caloundra, Australia, on August 10, 1996.
FPMT’s French-language translation office, Service de traduction de la FPMT, is happy to share their enthusiasm for a new promising project: creating French versions of the Masters Program (MP) study texts. Inspired by the unique vision of Lama Yeshe, the Masters Program (MP) is the organization’s most rigorous and advanced education program.
The MP scheduled to start this year at Nalanda Monastery in France isn’t able to provide a French graduation option due to a lack of translations of the necessary standard texts. With this project, Service de traduction de la FPMT’s goal is to see to it that French-speaking students in the future can fully benefit from the program. The translation of these essential texts will contribute to the emergence of a new generation of qualified French-speaking graduates, while at the same time serving all French speakers interested in Buddhism.
The principal texts that comprise the MP curriculum represent around 3,500 pages. Costs of this translation work is estimated to be around EUR€ 3,500 (US$4,500) each year for ten years. Motivated and experienced translators have already accepted the challenge to help realize this ambitious project.
The Italian Basic Program Online offered by Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa (ILTK) had its first ever final exam this March. All 10 participating students passed – a huge achievement for all involved! Kind thanks Basic Program Online tutor Vania Tesser, who provided students with the care, support and inspiration needed to get this far, and many other staff at ILTK who contributed over the course of five years! It is an FPMT exclusive: Previously we had no Homestudy students completing a Basic Program and final exam in any language other than English. Congratulations to all!
Recent live webcasts of Rinpoche teaching in Asia are available to watch anytime on Livestream.
