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Lama Yeshe’s Wisdom
Lama Yeshe standing in a field of a daffodil farm while visiting the Dandenong Ranges near Melbourne, Australia, 1976. Photo courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
As Losar approaches on Friday, February 12, 2021, we want to remember Lama Thubten Yeshe, who founded FPMT with Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Lama Yeshe’s heart stopped beating just before dawn on Losar, March 3, 1984. Rinpoche recommends especially sharing remembrances of Lama Yeshe at this time of year. Lama Yeshe had a remarkable ability to connect with Western students, who flocked to his teachings wherever he traveled. What follows is an excerpt from a teaching Lama Yeshe gave in July 1976 to Australian students on how we exist in the world. Here Lama Yeshe talks about how to live with an understanding of karma:
In English, one word can have different meanings. Similarly, whenever you express your own religious conceptions, ideas, philosophies or doctrines—whatever word you choose for it—saying, “This is right, that is wrong,” you’re just expressing your personal experience, making a personal judgment, not something that’s true in terms of the understanding of all of humanity. Still, I think it’s difficult for you to understand even your own personal experience of the way you perceive things, the way you feel, the way you discriminate.
However, through meditation, you can learn to tell the difference between right and wrong mental attitudes and, in particular, you can see how your dissatisfied mind makes you miserable. By understanding that, you can liberate yourself from confusion—you don’t need to believe in something. That’s why in his teachings Lord Buddha said that understanding knowledge-wisdom is the path to liberation.
Most of the time, including the present, we’re unaware of what we’re experiencing. We eat, drink, and so forth unconsciously. It’s true—I’m not trying to hypnotize you. Most of the time we’re unconscious. But, through meditation you can recollect all your past experiences. You can take your mind back through last month, last year, and all the way back to the time you were reborn. Then, by knowing the cause and effect of your past lives’ experience, you can relate it to the present time and understand what’s going on now: “If right now I put my actions into this particular channel the effect should be such and such.” You can get a pretty good idea.
Therefore, it’s very important to know what’s going on in both your past and future experiences. “If I act this way, this is going to happen. If I act that way, that will be the effect.” Karma is very important.
Otherwise, many people think, “Whatever comes, comes. I’ll go along with that.” And then you do. Other people, especially in the East, have an extreme view of karma: “Karma is fixed; I can’t do anything. My karma has given me this kind of life; I have to accept it.” You can accept what you are in this present life, but it’s not fixed. You can change your present situation for a better future. It’s not fixed.
If you say, “My karma has led me to this miserable life, I can’t do anything about it, I believe in my karma,” that’s ridiculous. Instead of making progress and becoming more open, by accepting that wrong philosophy of karma you become more narrow-minded. That’s a dangerous thing. You talk about karma, but if you don’t know what karma really is and believe in your limited idea of it, you become a fanatic. Therefore, it’s very important to have the right understanding of karma.
Question: It seems, for instance, that whatever situation you’re born in, that’s your karma, and that’s something you can’t change.
Lama Yeshe: Yes, that’s right. You can’t change that, but you can change lifestyle. For example, I was born in Tibet but now I’ve changed in that I’ve adapted to the Australian lifestyle. I’m eating muesli, fantastic chocolates, and other things that we didn’t have in Tibet!
Look, say you accidentally cut your arm. OK, it’s already cut, but there’s no point worrying. That won’t help. What you should do is take measures to heal that cut. That’s all you can do. The cut is there; you have to accept it.
Similarly, say you see a snake. You think, “Oh, a snake’s life is awful. I wish that snake could become a happy person.” That’s impossible. You can wish that, but for the time being the snake’s karma is to be in such a body. Until that karma finishes neither you nor the snake can do anything about it. Its body can’t radically change into a human one just like that. It’s not possible.
However, don’t think that karma is fixed. You can change your karma; you can change a miserable situation into a happy, blissful one. Even if you’ve done the worst, most negative things in the world, you don’t need to worry. If, with right wisdom, you change your old behavior, you can become a perfectly enlightened being, even in this life. For sure, that’s possible.
You may read the complete teaching in the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive’s July 2020 E-letter. Lama Yeshe gave this teaching in Olinda, Victoria, Australia, 30 July 1976. Archive #776. Edited by Nicholas Ribush. See Big Love: The Life and Teachings of Lama Yeshe, Volume 1, Chapter 15, “Melbourne: The Olinda Course” for the context of this teaching.
Read more about Losar, the Fifteen Days of Miracles, and what practices to do during this auspicious period:
https://fpmt.org/edu-news/advice-and-ideas-for-losar-and-the-fifteen-miracle-days-of-chotrul-duchen-2021/
Through timely advice, news stories, and update, FPMT.org and Mandala Publications share the wisdom culture inspired and guided by the teachings of FPMT founders Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche.
Lama Yeshe meditating by the sea, Sicily, Italy, 1983. Photos by Jacie Keeley, courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
Lama Thubten Yeshe (1935–1984) discussed how to deal with fear and anxiety in the context of the nuclear arms race and nuclear power at a talk given in 1983 in California, US. While today’s situation is different, Lama Yeshe’s insights are just as powerful now as they were when he first made them. Here’s a short excerpt of this talk found in the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive multimedia presentation “Switch Your Mind from Emotion to Peace”:
My concern is that if we allow ourselves to be anxious and afraid, emotionally disturbed, we’ll only produce more confusion within ourselves. When we’re confused, we spread confused energy to others and the environment. Bringing peace to the world is no small task. We have to take upon ourselves universal responsibility. As individuals, our first responsibility is to guarantee that we ourselves will never harm anybody else’s life, to generate the indestructible resolve that irrespective of the circumstances, “I’m never going touch weapons or kill other human beings.” We must have that kind of determination. If you don’t feel that way yourself, how can you make a big show if telling others to be like that. It’s not realistic. In order to educate others about how harmful and cruel nuclear energy can be, we first have to educate ourselves.
So, we shouldn’t worry about the nuclear age because it’s already here. We’re human beings; we created this situation. We lit this fire a long time ago. Of course, the earth has contained nuclear energy since it began, but has taken human intelligence to make it as dangerous as it has become. In Buddhism, we call this karma. Once a situation has manifested, the best thing to do is to accept the fact and deal with it.
Now, there’s no reason for us to hate each other, but anxiety breeds hatred. Therefore, we have to check our motivation for demonstrating for disarmament and against nuclear energy. Why are we doing this? Perhaps our reasons are selfish—what we’re really anxious about is our own destruction. Instead, we should have concern for the whole of humanity. That’s the right motivation. Then there’s no emotion. Even though you’re concerned, occasionally fearful, your fear does not come from an underlying, ever-present, emotional disturbance.
What’s the good of worrying about things twenty-four hours a day, disturbing your mind and preventing yourself from having a peaceful and joyful life? It’s a waste of time. Nothing’s going to change just because you’re worrying about it. If something’s already broken, it’s broken. Worrying won’t fix it. This earth has always been destructive by nature, nuclear age or not. There’s always blood flowing someplace or another. Look at world history. It’s always been like this. Buddhism calls this interdependent origination, and that’s how the human mind works.
Take America’s war in Vietnam, for example. That brought people together in a movement for peace. That’s also interdependent. Some people saw the horrible suffering, confusion, misery and destruction wrought by others, so they went the other way, thinking, “That’s not right,” and despite the difficulties, created a movement of peace and love.
But the right way to eliminate harm from this earth is to first free your mind from the emotional disturbances that cause irrational fear of destruction, and then educate yourself and others in how to bring peace to the world. The first thing you must do is to control your own mind and commit yourself: “From now on, no matter what happens, I’m never going to use weapons to kill any human being.” That’s where world peace starts.
Human beings can control their minds and actions such that they will never kill others; people can learn to see that harming others destroys not only the others’ pleasure and happiness but their own as well. Through this kind of education, we can prevent nuclear energy from destroying the world.
“Switch Your Mind from Emotion to Peace” presents the teachings of Lama Yeshe in a multimedia format that beautifully weaves together video of Lama Yeshe, transcripts, and images. The Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive offers more than twenty multimedia presentations for students at any level to explore and deepen their understanding of the teachings of Buddha as shared by Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Through timely advice, news stories, and updates, FPMT.org and Mandala Publications share the wisdom culture inspired and guided by the teachings of FPMT founders Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche.
Lama Yeshe doing puja at Pyramid Lake after the Grizzly Lodge Course, California, US, 1980. Photo courtesy Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive; Carol Fields, donor.
The following teaching from Lama Thubten Yeshe, who founded FPMT with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, encourages us to use our Dharma practice in difficult times.
Sometimes when people first hear Dharma teachings on happiness and suffering they think that happiness depends upon suffering and that if they were to be completely free of suffering there would be no way to experience happiness.
I can see where the idea comes from. In a way it’s quite logical: if there’s no misery, there’s no happiness; misery and happiness are interdependent phenomena. This is human experience. It’s my experience too.
When I was studying at Sera in Tibet from the ages of nine to twenty-four, I took many teachings and received many commentaries from excellent teachers. I was well looked after by my uncle, who made sure I never went hungry or thirsty and took care of me in general. It was a typical monastic life and it was really good. And from my side I tried my best to study and practice Dharma.
But still, in 1959, the Chinese kicked us out. Well, not exactly, but they did not allow people to practice Dharma, so I thought that if I want to keep practicing there was no reason to stay in Tibet. So I escaped to India. Not only were the Chinese preventing us from practicing, they were shooting people dead, and even though I had been studying and practicing, I didn’t feel ready to die.
So in that painful situation of uncertainty I had to look deeply into myself to see if all those teachings I had taken would allow me to cope with my new reality. I found that they helped a great deal, and that gave me the confidence I needed to deal with the changing environment in which we found ourselves.
If you’re not tested, you take teaching after teaching and think you’re OK, but when you’re confronted with a difficult situation, it’s possible that you’ll find you’re not OK at all. So that’s why true Dharma practitioners welcome trouble. It gives them a chance to see if what they’ve been studying works or not, a chance to transform suffering into happiness. Otherwise you just go blithely along, completely out of touch with reality, thinking you’re OK when you’re not, because you haven’t actually been practicing Dharma at all.
To put this another way, painful situations are a source of wisdom. How so? First of all, painful situations arise as a result of nonvirtuous karma. When we experience pain we should ask, “Why is this happening to me? How has this come about?” That sort of inquiry leads us to understand that it’s the ripening of negative karma we created in the past. That basic understanding can grow into wisdom; the painful experience helps us develop a deeper understanding that is beyond the merely intellectual.
Of course, if you’re completely ignorant, it doesn’t matter how much suffering you experience, there’s no way for that to lead to happiness. All you do is go from misery to more misery. If, on the other hand, you have at least a modicum of Dharma wisdom, when you’re in difficulty you know how to use that experience to lead yourself into happiness.
One lama said, “When things go well, you’re a great Dharma practitioner; when things go badly, your Dharma disappears. When your stomach is full and sunshine is pouring into your room, it’s easy to look religious; but when difficulties arise, you come up empty.”
It’s like when I was a young boy in Tibet and everything was going well, I pretty much took it for granted that I was practicing Dharma. It could easily have happened that when it came to the crunch, I could have found my Dharma practice wanting—that I’d never practiced or even understood Dharma—and that could easily have led me to give it up, thinking that Dharma doesn’t work.
Dharma practice is very difficult if you don’t understand what it is. You need to realize that Dharma teachings are talking about you, your personal reality. You need to take them personally and integrate them with your life. It’s no good if your Dharma understanding is like soup—many different ideas all mixed up—and you never make Dharma a part of your life. Then it can’t really help you.
If you understand your own attitude and level and know what you need at any particular moment in time, you can fulfill your needs appropriately and will see yourself making real progress. Simply collecting information that’s disconnected from your own reality doesn’t make sense. By understanding Dharma from your own point of view, from the way you live your life, you have a much better chance of developing yourself. So that’s what you should try to do. Base your practice on your own experience.
Lama Yeshe gave this teaching, “True Dharma Practitioners Welcome Trouble,” at Grizzly Lodge, California, in 1980. Edited by Nicholas Ribush. Published in Mandala October–December 2012. Also published in the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive ebook The Enlightened Experience, Volume 1.
Through timely advice, news stories, and update, FPMT.org and Mandala Publications share the wisdom culture inspired and guided by the teachings of FPMT founders Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Lama Yeshe in a tent at Syangboche, Solu Khumbu, Nepal, 1972. Photo courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
With the celebration of the seasonal holidays interrupted because of the global pandemic, we have an opportunity to reflect on our usual attitudes and habits at this time of year, and perhaps change them. Lama Yeshe spoke about how to see Christmas in a talk he gave to students staying at Kopan Monastery in Nepal in December 1972. Here’s the story and Lama Yeshe’s advice in an excerpt from Big Love: The Life and Teachings of Lama Yeshe:
Lama Yeshe had great appreciation for the spirit of Christmas but not for the rampant consumerism and materialistic expectations that often came with it. Some of his students were also experiencing the difficulties of separating from the Christian tradition they grew up with as they established a connection with the Buddhist tradition they had just met. This confusion seemed to result in some feelings of aversion toward their Christian heritage and Christmas seemed an ideal time to talk with them about these mistaken attitudes.
From Lama Yeshe’s Christmas talks:
When we see each other again on Christmas Eve for the celebration of holy Jesus’s birth, let us do so in peace, with a good vibration and a happy mind. I think it would be wonderful! To attend the celebration with an angry disposition would be so sad. Come instead with a beautiful motivation and much love. Have no discrimination, but see everything as a golden flower, even your worst enemy. Then Christmas, which so often produces an agitated mind, will become so beautiful.
When you change your mental attitude, the external vision also changes. This is a true turning of the mind. There is no doubt about this. I am not special, but I have had experience doing this, and it works. You people are so intelligent so you can understand how the mind has this ability to change itself and its environment. There is no reason why this change cannot be for the better.
Some of you might think, “Oh, I want to have nothing to do with Jesus, nothing to do with the Bible.” This is a very angry, emotional attitude to have toward Christianity. If you really understood, you would recognize that what Jesus said was, “Love!” It is as simple and as profound as that. When you have true love within you, I am sure that you will feel much more peaceful than you do now.
How do you normally think of love? Be honest. It is always involved with discrimination, isn’t it? Just look around this room and see if anyone here is an object of your love. Why do you discriminate so sharply between friend and enemy? Why do you see such a big difference between yourself and others? In the Buddhist teachings, this falsely discriminating attitude is called dualism. Jesus said that such an attitude is the opposite of true love. Therefore, is there any one of us who has the pure love Jesus was talking about? If we do not, we should not criticize his teachings or feel that they are irrelevant to us. We are the ones who have misunderstood, perhaps knowing the words of his teachings but never acting upon them.
There are many beautiful sentences in the Bible, but I do not recall reading that Jesus ever said that without your doing anything whatsoever, without preparing yourself in the same way, the Holy Spirit will descend upon you—whoosh! If you do not act the way he said you should act, there is no Holy Spirit existent anywhere for you.
What I have read in the Bible has the same connotation as the Buddhist teachings on equilibrium, compassion, and changing one’s ego-attachment into love for others. It may not be immediately obvious how to train your mind to develop these attitudes, but it is certainly possible to do so. Only our selfishness and closed-mindedness prevent us.
With true realizations, the mind is no longer egotistically concerned with only its own salvation. With true love, one no longer behaves dualistically, feeling very attached to some people, distant from others and totally indifferent to the rest. It is so simple. In the ordinary personality, the mind is always divided against itself, always fighting and disturbing its own peace.
The teachings on love are very practical. Do not put religion somewhere up in the sky and feel you are stuck down here on earth. If one’s actions of body, speech, and mind are in accordance with loving kindness, then you automatically become a truly religious person. To be religious does not mean that you attend certain teachings. If you listen to teachings and misinterpret them, you are, in fact, the opposite of religious. And it is only because you do not understand a certain teaching that you abuse religion.
Lack of deep understanding leads to partisanship. The ego feels, “I am a Buddhist, therefore Christianity must be all wrong.” This is very harmful to true religious feeling. You do not destroy a religion with bombs but with hatred. More importantly, you destroy the peacefulness of your own mind. It does not matter whether you express your hatred with words or not. Words do not mean anything. The mere thought of hatred automatically destroys your peace. Similarly, true love does not depend on physical expression. You should realize this. True love is a feeling deep within you. It is not just a matter of wearing a smile on your face and looking happy. Rather, it arises from a heartfelt understanding of every other being’s suffering and radiates out to all of them indiscriminately. It does not favor a chosen few to the exclusion of everyone else. This is true love.
For the Mount Everest Centre boys [the young monks from Solu Khumbu staying at Kopan], this was their first Christmas. Mummy Max shopped for them at the Commissary, returning with a Christmas tree, American-style trimmings, and plenty of chocolate goodies. They had lots of fun helping her decorate the tree, which was placed in the new gompa.
Visit the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive (LamaYeshe.com) for more on Big Love: The Life and Teachings of Lama Yeshe by Adele Hulse.
Through timely advice, news stories, and update, FPMT.org and Mandala Publications share the wisdom culture inspired and guided by the teachings of FPMT founders Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche.
Lama Yeshe teaching at Vajrapani Institute, California, 1983. Photos by Carol Royce-Wilder.
The following advice from Lama Thubten Yeshe, who founded FPMT with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, comes in response to a student question: “When we feel anger what should we do? Repress it, show it if it’s not harmful to others, or ignore it?”
The first thing you can do when somebody makes you angry is to analyze the situation, especially what caused it and its effect. When you analyze the situation, start by looking at how anger projects its object—how it concretizes and exaggerates the object. When you analyze the evolution of your anger in detail you can’t find that concrete object anywhere. That’s one way of eliminating anger.
Another thing you can consider is if it’s worth hanging onto your anger. The moment you conclude that it’s not worthwhile, that anger destroys yourself and others, you can change your mind and let it go. The inner conversation that breeds resentment and perpetuates anger—“He did this, she did that, he did this, she did that”—simply agitates your mind and is completely not worthwhile.
By analyzing the evolution of your anger and seeing what a ridiculous mind it is, you can weaken and eliminate it even intellectually. Anger can arise over really small and silly situations. For instance, families can argue over where to put a bowl of flowers. “I put it here, my wife wants it there,” and from that small beginning a huge fight can erupt. We don’t need big reasons. Simply not accepting change can cause anger to arise. So we need to analyze reality. Things change; that’s their nature. Accept and let go. Put it here, put it there—what difference does it make? Sometimes we think something’s so important and desperately want it to remain as it is. That’s wrong and can often lead to anger.
Buddhism always stresses impermanence; change is natural. It has nothing to do with concepts. Flowers gradually evolve from seeds planted in the ground; babies grow into children, then adults, age, then die. This is the natural way things go. Wives change; husbands change; girlfriends change; boyfriends change—it’s all natural.
Therefore it’s very important to accept change because it’s respecting nature. When you’re angry you don’t respect others. Others want to change something but you don’t—that means you’re disrespecting others’ will and the natural process of change.
And the main thing is that Buddhism considers anger to be the worst of all delusions. Unlike desire, anger is always negative—there’s no exception. The moment you get angry, you become negative and others appear negative to you. Buddhism does make an exception for desire; even though it’s usually negative, there’s a way to make it positive and bring positive results.
So, since anger is our worst enemy, we have to make every effort to abandon it; trying to do so is good enough. We should try, thinking, “Anger destroys my peace and pleasure and that of others. Controlling it is of utmost importance in my life.”
When we get angry, how do we see the object of our anger? In the morning, that person may have looked extremely attractive but in the afternoon, when we’re angry, he looks horrible, ugly. Obviously it’s not possible that he changed so radically from his side; it’s simply our projection exaggerating what we perceive as his bad qualities. Therefore we shouldn’t believe that he’s really bad but recognize our view and reaction as coming from our own mind.
Lama Yeshe answered this question after a talk on “Anxiety in the Nuclear Age,” given at the University of California, Santa Cruz, July 23, 1983. Edited from the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive by Nicholas Ribush. This excerpt appeared in the LYWA E-letter No. 77: December 2006 and is included as the chapter “Anger and Enemies” in the LYWA ebook The Enlightened Experience, Volume 2.
Through timely advice, news stories, and update, FPMT.org and Mandala Publications share the wisdom culture inspired and guided by the teachings of FPMT founders Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche.
Lama Yeshe at a family gathering at Vajrapani Institute, California, 1983. Photo by Carol Royce-Wilder.
The following advice from Lama Thubten Yeshe, who founded FPMT with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, comes in response to a student’s question: “How should we deal with people who consider us as their enemies or people who don’t trust us?”
With compassion—according to the way I was educated, people who hate you are objects of love and compassion. Why? Because they are not enemies forever; tomorrow they can become friends. Therefore there’s no such thing as a self-existent, concrete enemy.
We should know from our own experience that things always change. Today somebody can be a dear friend, tomorrow an enemy. Who knows? It’s all so relative, but so common—look at how many marriages break up, with people who were once loving partners regarding each other as mortal enemies. Before they couldn’t bear to be apart; now they can’t stand the sight of each other.
Therefore I think it’s important to deeply imprint your mind with the knowledge that there’s no external enemy so that if one appears to manifest today you don’t get caught up in hatred and just let go, thinking, “By hating me he’s hurting himself; he’s suffering. What is it in me that upsets him so much?” Do you see Buddhism’s reverse thinking? We think there’s some kind of destructive vibration in me that makes him hate me. I’m actually responsible for others not liking me. This is opposite to what we normally think; we think the hurt inflicted on us by our enemy is his fault.
Lord Buddha’s psychology is that we have some kind of negative magnetic energy within us that stimulates anger to manifest in another person who we then label “enemy.” Controlling that energy within us is the best way to eliminate enemies. From the Buddhist point of view, seeing others as enemies and wanting to destroy them is completely wrong.
The great bodhisattva Shantideva said that if the ground is covered in thorns it’s easier to avoid getting stuck by putting on shoes than by covering the ground with leather. Wearing shoes has the same effect as covering the ground with leather. Similarly, if we control our anger with patience, no external enemy can be found. Our main enemy is within; that’s the one we have to conquer. If you try to destroy external enemies how far can you get? Maybe you can kill one or two people but more enemies will arise. You can’t get rid of enemies that way. But if you get rid of the mind that sees enemies, no further enemies will ever be seen.
Lama Yeshe answered this question after a talk on “Anxiety in the Nuclear Age,” given at the University of California, Santa Cruz, July 23, 1983. Edited from the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive by Nicholas Ribush. This excerpt appeared in the LYWA E-letter No. 77: December 2006 and is included as the chapter “Anger and Enemies” in the LYWA ebook The Enlightened Experience, Volume 2.
Through timely advice, news stories, and update, FPMT.org and Mandala Publications share the wisdom culture inspired and guided by the teachings of FPMT founders Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche.
Lama Yeshe in meditation, Assisi, Italy, 1983. Photo by Andrea Antonietti, courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
Lama Thubten Yeshe, who founded FPMT with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, gave a timeless teaching on emptiness and daily life in September 1983. Here’s an excerpt:
Good morning all of you. The director of Vajra Yogini institute has asked me to speak about the integration of emptiness into everyday life.
What is emptiness? Emptiness (Skt: shunyata) is the reality of the existence of ourselves and all the phenomena around us. According to the Buddhist point of view, seeking reality and seeking liberation amount to the same thing. The person who doesn’t want to seek reality doesn’t really want to seek liberation, and is just confused.
If you seek reality and you think that it has to be shown to you by a Tibetan Lama, that you have to look for it outside yourself, in another place—maybe in Shangri-la!—then you are mistaken. You cannot seek reality outside yourself because you are reality.
Perhaps you think that your life, your reality was made by society, by your friends. If you think that way you are far from reality. If you think that your existence, your life was made by somebody else it means that you are not taking the responsibility to understand reality.
You have to see that your attitudes, your view of the world, of your experiences, of your girlfriend or boyfriend, of your own self, are all the interpretation of your own mind, your own imagination. They are your own projection, your mind literally made them up. If you don’t understand this then you have very little chance of understanding emptiness.
This is not just the Buddhist view but also the experience of Western physicists and philosophers—they have researched into reality too. Physicists look and look and they simply cannot find one entity that exists in a permanent, stable way: this is the Western experience of emptiness.
If you can imagine that then you will not have any concrete concepts; if you understand this experience of physicists then you will let go of your worldly problems—but you don’t want to understand.
At the energy level there is space and there is body, and both have the same four elements. There is an interdependence between these two energies, the one around us and our own energy.
You check up, analyze: your skin, your bones, your nose, face are only energy, no more. If you try to separate them from energy then nothing will be left of your skin, your bones, your nose, your face. Everything is simply energy. If you understand the energy level of existence, if you really understand who you are, what you are in this way then you will break down your concepts, your uptightness, you will break down the preconceptions you have of your own self-existence. But no way! You are always uptight and that is why you have problems.
It seems to me that we twentieth century people are against nature, against reality, the very opposite of reality. Each moment we build up our artificial, polluted ego; we cover ourselves with heavy ego blankets—one, two, ten, one hundred blankets against nature, against reality.
In industrialized countries we disturb nature, we don’t appreciate the value of nature. Nature has its own value but we shake nature, we completely change it, we don’t respect the harmony of nature. We destroy this harmony because we don’t communicate with nature.
Modern life is the product of the intellectual mind, and we create it. The intellectual mind is superstition. We don’t understand reality, and the intellectual life that we live keeps us far from reality.
So we don’t accept what we are. We are always looking to cover ourselves with thick blankets and say “This is me.” We hide our own reality and run away from natural beauty, completely neglecting it. By not touching our reality our modern life becomes so complicated and we create problems with our superstitions. We are like a spider spinning his web, climbing on his thread then falling down; climbing up again and falling down again. In the same way we build our own intellectual web, a way of life, that is so complicated, that doesn’t touch reality, that is so difficult to live in. This construction arises from our own mind and does not arise from anything else.
If I said you are nothing, you are zero, that you are nothing that you think you are, then you would be shocked. “What is this monk saying?” But what if I say that it is the truth! In fact you are non duality, non self-existence. You do not exist, relatively or absolutely, as you think you do. If you really understood this then you would really gain satisfaction and peace. But as long as you hold on to the fantasy, concrete conception of yourself and project this wrong conception onto your environment, then no way will you understand reality! …
Excerpted from “How to Let Go: How to Integrate Emptiness in Everyday Life.” Lama Yeshe gave this talk at Institut Vajra Yogini, Marzens, France, on September 5, 1983. It was published in the FPMT’s Wisdom Magazine in 1984, shortly after Lama Yeshe’s death. This teaching also appears in the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive ebook The Enlightened Experience, Volume 2.
Through timely advice, news stories, and updates, FPMT.org and Mandala Publications share the wisdom culture inspired and guided by the teachings of FPMT founders Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche.
Lama Yeshe, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, 1978. Photo courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
The Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive’s September E-letter featured the following teaching from Lama Thubten Yeshe (1935–1984), who founded FPMT with Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Bodhichitta itself makes us so completely peaceful, so happy. The self-cherishing thought is like putting a sword or knife into our heart; our heart is really hurt, relatively and absolutely! But bodhichitta is something which makes us completely relaxed. I think bodhichitta is unbelievable; it’s the most important thing we can practice in our entire life. It makes us really happy and there’s no room for others to disturb us. Otherwise, everybody is our enemy. The opposite of bodhichitta is feeling that everybody is an enemy.
In the West, people sometimes think, “She is taking advantage; he is taking advantage; you are taking advantage.” People think that everybody takes advantage of them, but it’s not true. I know many people who think human beings take advantage of each other. Do you feel that way? I don’t know. It’s not true! Human beings have always been kind to each other, helping each other. Always. It’s our fundamental nature. So, bodhichitta helps us to relax even when we’re not meditating. Really, bodhichitta makes us content, satisfied. If somebody hits us, if somebody beats us, it’s still OK. If somebody’s criticizing us, it’s still OK. If somebody’s stealing our money, it’s still OK. If somebody does bad things to us, it’s still OK. The mind makes it OK; that’s all it is. And it’s the mind that makes it not OK, isn’t it?
So, I think bodhichitta is the best. In my opinion we all need bodhichitta, especially in Western society. If we have to integrate our practice into Western society’s working life, I think bodhichitta is the best way. Bodhichitta is definitely the best way to integrate our practice. In Western society people have very strong, concrete relationships with each other, for example, “I’m working for you,” or “You and me,” becomes so concrete. You say, “I want you to do this,” and I say, “Yes, I can do this much.” Do you know what I mean? In the beginning we have to talk to make such an incredible relationship, therefore bodhichitta is really, really important.
For me it seems like bodhichitta is the real essential. Western people can easily help others, but when we try to teach them indestructible samadhi meditation it is very difficult, because Western life is not made for that, unfortunately. Of course, we still have time. But we can practice bodhichitta so easily; we can see other people suffering, we can see our boss suffering, we can see the workers suffering, we can see so much suffering. Oh, my goodness, Western people have so much suffering, so much conflict. I really have compassion when I go to America. Californian people are sweet, they’re hardworking and physically they’re comfortable, but in their mind they’re going on an incredible trip. The more I stay, the more I have compassion for them. Really, they have so much suffering mentally. I don’t know, maybe it’s my projection, but I’m telling you my experience. I feel that those people have so much mental suffering.
So, in my opinion, bodhichitta is the best way. Bodhichitta makes our heart completely relaxed. In our life we have to deal with other peoples’ difficulties, so this helps. When people give us problems but at the same time we can be satisfied and can help them, this comes from bodhichitta. We should have bodhichitta; it is the best!
Even in a man-woman relationship, bodhichitta is very useful. A man can see the woman is suffering or the woman can see her partner is suffering—when you can see that, how can you add more suffering? Normally in relationships people hurt each other, don’t they? “I’m dissatisfied with him so I will hurt him.” Or he hurts her because he’s dissatisfied. Can you imagine? That’s the way it is. All these relationships are a disaster because they are not getting enough. You definitely decide, “I’m not getting enough from him (or her).” That is selfish—completely, purely selfish. I think that is clean clear. You hurt your partner because you are dissatisfied, because you are not getting pleasure. “I’m not getting pleasure, so I’m leaving!” That’s California style! It’s easy, isn’t it? It’s very easy. “I’m leaving. I’m dissatisfied, I’m not happy, therefore I’m leaving.” I think it’s completely selfish; it’s unbelievable! How can we always be happy with each other? We have so much garbage, so many trips inside.
How can I expect to always be happy with you? I cannot! I cannot guarantee that you people will be happy. It’s true! Therefore, you should accept it: “How can my selfish mind think it’s unfair this way? It’s not true. I should be reasonable. It’s natural that sometimes I get pleasure and sometimes I do not. I’m not happy but still I will try, and I will analyze what is wrong and why.”
This is excerpted from a question-and-answer session with Lama Yeshe during the Sixteenth Kopan Meditation Course held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal on December 8, 1983. Edited by Uldis Balodis. You can read the entire teaching here on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive (LamaYeshe.com) and you can find it in the new Lama Yeshe ebook The Enlightened Experience: Collected Teachings, Volume 3.
Through timely advice, news stories, and update, FPMT.org and Mandala Publications share the wisdom culture inspired and guided by the teachings of FPMT founders Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche.
Cover of Big Love: The Live and Teachings of Lama Yeshe
The Tibetan New Year, Losar, falls on February 24 this year. For FPMT students, this day has additional significance as it commemorates the anniversary of the parinirvana of Lama Yeshe, who co-founded FPMT with Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
As part of Rinpoche’s advice on how to celebrate Losar and the Fifteen Days of Miracles, Rinpoche recommends that centers host events to introduce new students to Lama Yeshe. These events might include students who knew Lama Yeshe sharing their favorite stories, watching videos of Lama teaching, or reading stories about Lama.
In that spirit, we’re sharing this update from Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive:
After nearly thirty years in the making, Big Love: The Life and Teachings of Lama Yeshe, will soon be here! Big Love, the official, authorized biography of Lama Yeshe, contains personal stories of the lamas and the students who learned, lived, and traveled with them, as well as more than 1,500 photos dating back to the 1960s. You can pre-order Big Love now!
The book tells the story of Lama Yeshe, how he met Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and how they created the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), one of the world’s largest Tibetan Buddhist organizations. It begins in Tibet, where Lama was born, and moves to the refugee camp in Buxa Duar, West Bengal, India, where Rinpoche became his student. The story continues to other parts of India and Nepal, and finally to the entire world.
Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche on the steps of Kopan Monastery, Nepal, 1970. Photo courtesy Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
The author, Adele Hulse, one of Lama Yeshe’s earliest students, highlights his special connection with early Dharma seekers and skillfully weaves their intimate stories with details of where Lama went, the teachings he gave, and the centers he inspired. It brings to life how special he was and how he connected with people from all over the world and all walks of life.
If you knew Lama, as Lama Yeshe was fondly called by his students, you will be reminded of his wisdom and charisma; if you did not, this is the perfect introduction.
Watch a promotional video for Big Love here:
https://youtu.be/Z4hH9_066NY
The official launch of this magnificent work will be on March 24, during the retreat with Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, Australia. Osel Hita is planning to attend, together with the author, Adele Hulse, and the publisher, Nick Ribush.
Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive expects copies of Big Love to be available by the end of March 2020. Pre-order is open now and will remain open through February 27. For more information or to place an order go to: www.LamaYeshe.com/BigLove.
After pre-order closes, the Archive will be accepting orders again once the books arrive from the printer. FPMT center bookstores are eligible for a 50% discount, and Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive encourages you to pre-order now, as you may be able to take advantage of lower shipping rates. Email us at info@LamaYeshe.com.
Read “A Monumental Accomplishment: The Making of Big Love” and “1941–58: Living a Monastic Life,” an excerpt from Big Love, both published in Mandala July-December 2019.
Lama Thubten Yeshe with a child at Maitreya Instituut, the Netherlands, 1981. Photo by Ina van Delden, courtesy Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
When we see each other again on Christmas Eve for the celebration of Holy Jesus’ birth, let us do so in peace and with a good vibration and a happy mind. I think it would be wonderful. To attend the celebration with an angry disposition would be so sad. Come instead with a beautiful motivation and much love. Have no discrimination, but see everything as a golden flower, even your worst enemy. Then Christmas, which so often produces an agitated mind, will become so beautiful.
When you change your mental attitude, the external vision also changes. This is a true turning of the mind. There is no doubt about this. I am not special, but I have had experience of doing this, and it works. You people are so intelligent, so you can understand how the mind has this ability to change itself and its environment. There is no reason why this change cannot be for the better.
Some of you might think, “Oh, I want to have nothing to do with Jesus, nothing to do with the Bible.” This is a very angry, emotional attitude to have towards Christianity. If you really understood, you would recognize that what Jesus taught was, “Love!” It is as simple and as profound as that. If you had true love within you, I am sure you would feel much more peaceful than you do now. …
Read the entire excerpt from Silent Mind, Holy Mind and find links to the book at Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive :
https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/christmas-dharma
Lama Thubten Yeshe, with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, founded the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation, and community service.
Long life puja for Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the conclusion of the 51st Kopan Meditation Course, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, December 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
November’s Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive E-letter shares the story of the first Kopan Meditation Course at Kopan Monastery in Nepal:
Zina was still eager for Lama Yeshe to teach a course, but he refused. She turned to Zopa Rinpoche. “She pestered me relentlessly,” Rinpoche recalled. “She kept on asking until I began to feel encouraged in my heart and developed a strong wish to do it. I asked Lama Yeshe what he thought. He replied, ‘Well, if you think it will be beneficial, then you do.’ So, with Lama’s blessing, I agreed,” said Zopa Rinpoche.
The first course was held in April 1971. It was springtime at Kopan, dry and breezy. The monsoon rains weren’t due to start until the end of May or early June, but the colder winter months had passed and the temperature was quite warm during the days. Zina took charge of the overall arrangements and Zopa Rinpoche taught a ten-day course based on his stamp-filled text on thought transformation. With help from Anila Ann, he managed to translate six lines on hell, two lines on the perfect human rebirth and one line on karma. These were developed into an extensive meditation on how to regard friends, enemies, and strangers with equanimity, and an explanation of the sufferings of animals and hungry ghosts. In those days, practically the only English-language lamrim book was Herbert Guenther’s translation of Gampopa’s Jewel Ornament of Liberation, which was first published in 1959. “I taught mainly about the lower realms, the sufferings of hell beings and animals, ending up with the sufferings of human beings,” said Rinpoche:
In order to realize the three lower realms, we must fully see the sufferings that exist there. However, at the moment we have no power to perceive these things directly. Therefore we should try to experience those realms through our practice, using the examples shown in the teachings. In this way we can gain the power to see this suffering clearly in our minds.
Even at this moment, most beings are suffering in the three lower realms, especially in the hell realms. Their suffering has not been created by God or fixed by some other being. It is only a creation of those suffering beings’ minds, just as in a dream we may sometimes suffer in a fire, or from all kinds of fearful persons or demons fighting and frightening us. In the same way that these fearful dreams and visions are the creation of our illusive mind, so are the suffering and the realms of the naraks and so forth the creation of beings’ ignorant mind. However, the narak realms are not the same as dreams, but are karmic creations of the ignorant mind. This is similar to the way that one place can be seen differently by two different people—one may see a clean place while another person may see a dirty place. Although the object is the same, the view varies according to the level of mind, fortune, and the karma the being has created. As the mind reaches higher levels, the enjoyments and the visions change and the transcendental awareness and happiness we experience increases more and more.
Each living being’s samsara is a creation of that mind; each living being’s enlightenment is also a mental creation. In a dim room lit by a small candle with a flickering flame, a person without acute perception may see a fearful moving animal or demon, become afraid and perhaps throw something at it. This problem is only the creation of that person’s mind. The person with a calm, relaxed mind, on the other hand, will see what is actually there clearly. All experiences are created by the mind. Similarly, the suffering of the hell being is merely the creation of that suffering being’s mind. Therefore, the choice to experience suffering, to be in a suffering realm, or to be in the perfect peace of enlightenment depends upon the decision of the mind.
Around a dozen people took that course—Zengo’s students from Bodhgaya as well as Åge, Zina and Claudio Cipullo. Claudio had been down in Bodhgaya when he found himself staring fixedly at a photo of Lama Yeshe. “I decided he was calling me! That course was like an explanation of my whole life,” said Claudio. Losang Nyima acted as umdze and took care of the candles, water bowls, incense, and food offerings arranged on the altars. He also supervised all the cooking. During the course Lama Yeshe stayed down at Max’s house.
Two days before the end of the course Lama Yeshe, in the company of a Lhasa Apso, returned to Kopan and gave a couple of talks. This wonderful little dog, which actually belonged to Rinpoche, a gift from his mother, accompanied Lama nearly everywhere and was much admired by everyone at Kopan. Many strays found their way to Kopan and devoured any food they were offered, but this little dog always sat back very nobly and waited. She never fought over food or tried to get at it until everyone else had finished. Then she’d eat alone, quietly. Her name was Drolma, which is Tibetan for Tara, the female buddha of enlightened skillful activity.
Excerpted from the 1971 chapter of Big Love, by Adele Hulse, forthcoming from LYWA in 2019. You can read more from this chapter on LYWA’s website:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/chapter/1971-first-kopan-meditation-course
Check out the rest of the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive November 2018 E-letter, with updates from LYWA and links to new advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche plus to a video of Lama Yeshe teaching:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/e-letter-no-185-november-2018
Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.
Lama Yeshe’s famous teaching style is fully present in this book, according to the book’s editor, Ven. Robina Courtin: “His words are not only experiential but also direct, funny, deceptively simple, and incredibly encouraging—enlightenment seems possible.”
Here Lama Yeshe explains mahamudra in the book’s opening chapter:
According to Tibetan Buddhism, mahamudra is one of the most advanced teachings of the Buddha. Mahamudra is Sanskrit: maha means “great” and mudra can be translated as “seal.” When you lend me one hundred dollars, we make a contract and we seal it, don’t we? It shows: “Next year I have the obligation to pay you back.” You have the document as a guarantee.
However, this seal, this great seal, is not a physical seal made in a factory. It is the universal reality of emptiness, nonduality, non–self-existence. It exists in all phenomena, including sentient beings. It is also not some made-up philosophical concept. It doesn’t matter whether you accept it or deny it. If I say, “I don’t believe there is an earth; I don’t believe there is a sun,” who cares? Even though I reject the existence of the sun, I’m standing in the rays of the sun. Even though I deny the existence of the earth, I’m standing on the earth.
The reality of nonduality is inescapable. It is the inborn nature of all phenomena. It exists equally in all things: organic, nonorganic, permanent, impermanent, including all beings. It exists always within us. The name we give it is mahamudra.
Learn more about and order Mahamudra: How to Discover Our True Nature by Lama Yeshe on Wisdom Publications’ website:
https://wisdomexperience.org/book/mahamudra-0
You can also order Mahamudra: How to Discover Our True Nature from the FPMT Foundation Store:
https://shop.fpmt.org/Mahamudra–How-to-Discover-Our-True-Nature_p_3130.html
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