Lama Yeshe’s Wisdom

Lama Yeshe at Kopan Monastery, 1971. Photo courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

In 1971, at the famous Kopan November course in Kathmandu, Nepal, FPMT founder Lama Yeshe took time to speak with his students about Christmas time and the figure of Jesus.

The teachings were originally published by Wisdom Publications in 1978 under the title Silent Mind, Holy Mind. 

This is the week of Holy Jesus’ birth, and I suggest that in honor of this special event we make some sort of celebration. But we should try to make it meaningful. It should not be some sort of physical sensation, bringing only more confusion and superstition to our minds.

For a Christmas celebration to be a good one, it must be of a truly religious nature. Jesus came to this Earth and presented his teachings, but worldly beings completely disregard this fact. For them, Christmas means—first and foremost—spending money, buying presents, and creating confusion. Such confusion is entirely of our own making. We have the power to make Christmas meaningful, peaceful, and truly religious, but instead of using this power we succumb to worldly negative energy. We go shopping to buy presents, but this is not done with anything even resembling a loving attitude. We think, “I really must buy something for my sister, because if I don’t give her anything, maybe she won’t like me anymore. Maybe she won’t give me anything either.” Or, “I better not get my friend a cheap present, or I might not get anything valuable back from him next year.” Such thoughts are extremely negative, leading to nothing but dissatisfaction. They are totally involved with egotistic and immature notions about what true happiness is. They have nothing whatsoever to do with religion.

True religion brings peace and satisfaction to the mind. Actions that arouse only confusion serve no religious function at all. They stem instead from a political mind that thinks, “If I give this, I’ll get that in return.” Such a mind is extremely immature. It delights when many presents are received, and is depressed when expectations go unfulfilled. What difference, then, is there between such a mind and that of a small child? We consider ourselves to be grown up, but our actions and attitudes show us to be little different from our children. They exaggerate the importance of receiving gifts, and so do we. In fact, their exaggerated expectation of their minds of confusion and dissatisfaction are mainly developed by watching us. If we were to act in a consistently mature and meaningful way, our children would also become peaceful. We sometimes think that they are naturally berserk, and that we are something special but this is not so. Check up and see exactly what happens when a holiday approaches. We are the ones who create the commotion. The first thing that happens at the beginning of a holiday is that husband and wife, brother and sister and so forth begin to fight with one another. Be honest, and investigate the truth of this. I am not trying to be excessively negative; just check up and see if this is true or not. Holiday bickering has so much jealousy in it, “Let me see, what did you get? What did you get?” Such a dualistic mind is totally submerged in selfishness and wrong conceptions. 

This deluded behavior is not common only to one type of culture. It can be found everywhere. Similarly, the antidote to this confusion is not taught merely in Buddhism. All religions strive to counter unsatisfactory, confused attitudes and bring us peace of mind.

It is characteristic of materialistic people that they believe their happiness and frustration to be totally dependent on external phenomena and possessions. If they do not receive enough ice cream and cake they are despondent: “I feel so empty. This Christmas has been such a flop I could die!” For them, the success or failure of a religious holiday depends entirely on material things. They cannot discover peace and happiness within their own consciousness, depending instead on some external, physical sign of “love.” It does not matter how much they might profess to be spiritual; their minds are completely obsessed by the gross, material level of reality ….

When Jesus was living on earth, there were no churches and such. His religion was not divided up into many groups and societies with people saying, “I’m a member of this sect; what denomination are you?” Things had not yet tightened up to the point where the religious follower felt compelled to choose one path or another. In this respect, at least, the people were much more liberated than we are today. Whatever they did in terms of their religion was done honestly and sincerely. Nowadays when you ask someone why he follows a particular religious tradition, he is likely to say, “Because my father did,” or “Because that church is near my house.” It is ridiculous to follow a particular set of teachings for these reasons. Others belong to a certain religion because it has the largest congregation in town. This also has nothing whatsoever to do with the true spirit journey.

Jesus Christ, from Lama Yeshe’s “Silent Mind, Holy Mind”

One solitary being sincerely actualizing the everlasting peaceful path to liberation is more precious than a whole host of confused beings shouting. “This is my religion!” Such people may easily criticize the sincere seeker, despising him for holding beliefs contrary to those of the multitudes. Sheer numbers count for nothing in spiritual terms. It does not matter how many people are engaged in building a church, temple, or monastery; if they lack true religious feeling, their actions mean nothing ….

Therefore, if our Christmas celebration is to be truly religious, it is important to remember who Jesus was, what he did and what he stood for. In this way we can understand how he benefited so many sentient beings and why he has been such a positive force, not merely in his own time, but throughout the last 2,000 years, and up to the present day.

Jesus had exceptionally great compassion. It is very good to check up on this fact, and consider it deeply.

If the thought comes to our mind, “I must gain his realizations and become as compassionate as he was,” then this is the most perfect basis on which to have a celebration of his birth. With this feeling in our hearts, a Christmas festival can be very meaningful and worthwhile.

Lama Thubten Yeshe is the founder of FPMT, an international 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, spread the Dharma to sentient beings.

Lama Yeshe teaching at Olinda, Australia, 1976. Lama Photo courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

This week many of us head into a long holiday weekend with family and friends. We’d like to share an excerpt from Lama Yeshe’s Christmas teachings originally published by Wisdom Publications in 1978 under the title Silent Mind, Holy Mind. 

This is the week of Holy Jesus’ birth, and I suggest that in honor of this special event we make some sort of celebration. But we should try to make it meaningful. It should not be some sort of physical sensation, bringing only more confusion and superstition to our minds.

For a Christmas celebration to be a good one, it must be of a truly religious nature. Jesus came to this Earth and presented his teachings, but worldly beings completely disregard this fact. For them, Christmas means – first and foremost – spending money, buying presents, and creating confusion. Such confusion is entirely of our own making. We have the power to make Christmas meaningful, peaceful, and truly religious, but instead of using this power we succumb to worldly negative energy. We go shopping to buy presents, but this is not done with anything even resembling a loving attitude. We think, “I really must buy something for my sister, because if I don’t give her anything, maybe she won’t like me anymore. Maybe she won’t give me anything either.” Or, “I better not get my friend a cheap present, or I might not get anything valuable back from him next year.” Such thoughts are extremely negative, leading to nothing but dissatisfaction. They are totally involved with egotistic and immature notions about what true happiness is. They have nothing whatsoever to do with religion.

Lama Yeshe teaching at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, 1974. Photo by Ursula Bernis, courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

True religion brings peace and satisfaction to the mind. Actions that arouse only confusion serve no religious function at all. They stem instead from a political mind that thinks, “If I give this, I’ll get that in return.” Such a mind is extremely immature. It delights when many presents are received, and is depressed when expectations go unfulfilled. What difference, then, is there between such a mind and that of a small child? We consider ourselves to be grown up, but our actions and attitudes show us to be little different from our children. They exaggerate the importance of receiving gifts, and so do we. In fact, their exaggerated expectation of their minds of confusion and dissatisfaction are mainly developed by watching us. If we were to act in a consistently mature and meaningful way, our children would also become peaceful. We sometimes think that they are naturally berserk, and that we are something special but this is not so. Check up and see exactly what happens when a holiday approaches. We are the ones who create the commotion. The first thing that happens at the beginning of a holiday is that husband and wife, brother and sister and so forth begin to fight with one another. Be honest, and investigate the truth of this. I am not trying to be excessively negative; just check up and see if this is true or not. Holiday bickering has so much jealousy in it, “Let me see, what did you get? What did you get?” Such a dualistic mind is totally submerged in selfishness and wrong conceptions. 

This deluded behavior is not common only to one type of culture. It can be found everywhere. Similarly, the antidote to this confusion is not taught merely in Buddhism. All religions strive to counter unsatisfactory, confused attitudes and bring us peace of mind.

Lama Yeshe with children and students in California, 1983. Photo courtesy of the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

It is characteristic of materialistic people that they believe their happiness and frustration to be totally dependent on external phenomena and possessions. If they do not receive enough ice cream and cake they are despondent: “I feel so empty. This Christmas has been such a flop I could die!” For them, the success or failure of a religious holiday depends entirely on material things. They cannot discover peace and happiness within their own consciousness, depending instead on some external, physical sign of “love.” It does not matter how much they might profess to be spiritual; their minds are completely obsessed by the gross, material level of reality….

When Jesus was living on earth, there were no churches and such. His religion was not divided up into many groups and societies with people saying, “I’m a member of this sect; what denomination are you?” Things had not yet tightened up to the point where the religious follower felt compelled to choose one path or another. In this respect, at least, the people were much more liberated than we are today. Whatever they did in terms of their religion was done honestly and sincerely. Nowadays when you ask someone why he follows a particular religious tradition, he is likely to say, “Because my father did,” or “Because that church is near my house.” It is ridiculous to follow a particular set of teachings for these reasons. Others belong to a certain religion because it has the largest congregation in town. This also has nothing whatsoever to do with the true spirit journey.

One solitary being sincerely actualizing the everlasting peaceful path to liberation is more precious than a whole host of confused beings shouting. “This is my religion!” Such people may easily criticize the sincere seeker, despising him for holding beliefs contrary to those of the multitudes. Sheer numbers count for nothing in spiritual terms. It does not matter how many people are engaged in building a church, temple, or monastery; if they lack true religious feeling, their actions mean nothing….

Jesus Christ, from Lama Yeshe’s “Silent Mind, Holy Mind”

Therefore, if our Christmas celebration is to be truly religious, it is important to remember who Jesus was, what he did and what he stood for. In this way we can understand how he benefited so many sentient beings and why he has been such a positive force, not merely in his own time, but throughout the last 2,000 years, and up to the present day.

Jesus had exceptionally great compassion. It is very good to check up on this fact, and consider it deeply.

If the thought comes to our mind, “I must gain his realizations and become as compassionate as he was,” then this is the most perfect basis on which to have a celebration of his birth. With this feeling in our hearts, a Christmas festival can be very meaningful and worthwhile.

Silent Mind, Holy Mind is currently out of print but available as a spiral bound paper copy from the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. 

Lama Tsongkhapa Day, or Ganden Ngamchoe, is a celebration of the anniversary of Lama Tsongkhapa’s parinirvana. It is celebrated on the 25th day of the 10th month in the Tibetan calendar. This year, Lama Tsongkhapa Day falls on Friday, December 23. Students may like to consider including Lama Tsongkhapa practice in their holiday weekend. 

The light offerings at Osel Labrang, Sera Monastery, India, December 2015. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

In December 1971, FPMT founder Lama Yeshe gave teachings to students at Kopan Monastery, which were collected into the book Silent Mind, Holy Mind, published by the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. Here’s the beginning of a short excerpt from the book:

“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. …”

Read the complete excerpt from Silent Mind, Holy Mind on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive: 
https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/christmas-dharma

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 teaching at Olinda, Australia. On July, 26 1976, Lama Yeshe gave a public lecture in Melbourne. That same evening a weekend course for eighty commenced at Olinda in the Dandenong Ranges outside the city. Photo courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive (lamayeshe.com).

What if your dear mother were caught in a blazing fire? You would not relax and say, “Let her burn. I don’t have time to get her out right now. I’ll do it later.” Of course you would stop whatever you were doing, no matter how seemingly important, and immediately rush to rescue her. We must regard all beings as our mother – and they are indeed trapped and burning in the fire of wrong conceptions and negativities. We must not be lazy about this! We must transform every action – eating, sleeping, working – into Dharma wisdom.

But we are lazy, aren’t we? Our impure mind lets us live life as if it were a tea party: “Let my mother burn – I’ll pull her out of the fire when I’ve finished enjoying myself.” Of course, we do not say these words, but our inner feeling, beyond words, reflects this attitude. Be careful; we often behave like this.

All the same, we don’t need to get too emotional about all this. If I pump you up too much, you’ll get overexcited and not want to do anything but run off to the mountains to meditate or run off preaching that everybody should practice Buddhism just like you do. That becomes another problem.

– Lama Yeshe, from When the Chocolate Runs Out, published by Wisdom Publications

Lama Yeshe was the founder 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.

Kopan Monastery at night, Khensur Rinpoche Lama Lhundrup’s stupa to the left, Geshe Lama Konchog’s stupa to the right and new light offerings on the trees, Nepal, December 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Many of the Western students who came to Kopan Monastery to hear FPMT founders Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche teach in the 1970s came from Christian backgrounds. Recognizing this, each year Lama Yeshe gave teachings that touched on these students’ experiences of Christmas celebration. In 1978, Wisdom Publications published a collection of these teachings called Silent Mind, Holy Mind. Here’s a short excerpt of Lama Yeshe’s teachings:

“… It is characteristic of materialistic people that they believe their happiness and frustration to be totally dependent on internal phenomena and possessions. If they do not receive enough ice cream and cake they are despondent: ‘I feel so empty. This Christmas has been such a flop I could die!’ For them, the success or failure of a religious holiday depends entirely on material things. They cannot discover peace and happiness within their own consciousness, depending instead on some external, physical sign of ‘love.’ It does not matter how much they might profess to be spiritual; their minds are completely obsessed by the gross, material level of reality.

“The investigation of such matters is Dharma, the true religious pursuit. Dharma study does not mean something coming out of the sky from another world. It deals directly with such questions as our motivation, what we are thinking and feeling right now in the midst of our everyday life.

“If we don’t not make an attempt to control the negative, confused mind, then there is no such thing as Christianity, there is no Buddhism, no Mahayana. There is nothing worthwhile! We must recognize the negative mind for what it is, and then slowly begin to find a solution for the pain it causes ourselves and others. In this way our mind can be brought to a state of everlastingly peaceful realization. If we do nothing to correct our motivation and distorted ways of thinking, then Christmas exists merely for the ego. Although supposedly making a celebration for Jesus, what we are actually doing is completely degenerate.

“Therefore, if you want to come to this Christmas celebration and bring a present, the best present you can bring is a peaceful mind. If you can make such an offering with true love for one another, that is enough. …” 

The above excerpt is taken from Mandala December 2006-January 2007. 

Mandala brings you news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and of activities, teachings and events from nearly 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.

Over one weekend at Barnens O on Vaddo in September of 1983, Lama Yeshe gave a meditation course which later was published in English called “Light of Dharma,” translated into Swedish as “Lamas ljus.” Photo by Holger Hjorth, from Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive (lamayeshe.com).

If someone’s giving you a hard time and your ego starts to hurt, instead of reacting, just take a look at what’s going on. Think of how sound is simply coming out of the other person’s mouth, entering your ear, and causing pain in your heart. If you think about this in the right way, it will make you laugh; you will see how ridiculous it is to get upset by something so insubstantial.

– Lama Yeshe, from When the Chocolate Runs Out, published by Wisdom Publications

Lama Yeshe was the founder 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 from the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive

“I see that Western people are getting busier and busier, more and more restless,” Lama Yeshe said in Becoming Your Own Therapist. ”I’m not criticizing material or technological development as such, but rather the uncontrolled mind. Because you don’t know who or what you are, you spend your life blindly grasping at what I call ‘supermarket goodness.’ You agitate your own life; you make yourself restless. Instead of integrating your life, you splinter it. Check up for yourself. I’m not putting you down. In fact, Buddhism doesn’t allow us to dogmatically put down anybody else’s way of life. All I’m trying to suggest is that you consider looking at things another way.”

Read more from “Chapter One: Finding Ourselves Through Buddhism” of Becoming Your Own Therapist on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

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.