Lama Zopa Rinpoche during a visit to the Chandragiri Hill Resort, Nepal, November 2021. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

The Six Perfections: The Practice of the Bodhisattvas by Lama Zopa Rinpoche has recently been released in a paperback edition. In the book, Rinpoche walks us through the six perfections, which are a key Mahayana Buddhist teaching. Here’s an excerpt from Rinpoche’s teaching on the perfection of patience:

There is nothing pleasant at all about anger. Irritation, agitation, impatience, sullenness, spite—all these sorts of negative emotions overwhelm us and refuse to give us one moment’s peace, whereas when we have patience, we have genuine peace. There is no question of which is preferable. The frustrated, unhappy mind is the fuel that can easily grow into anger. Until we have learned to overcome that anger with patience, it will destroy any happiness we have.

It’s not that anger and hatred are weak minds. With hatred our mind is incredibly focused on the object of our hatred and how to destroy it. We should turn that strength around to destroy the real enemy, focusing all our attention on what is really causing us such unhappiness—our own anger. We need to destroy it completely with patience.

We don’t have to become angry when an enemy tries to harm us or when adverse situations occur. It’s impossible to avoid problems, but when we analyze such situations, we will see that there is no reason for becoming unhappy. Unless we can generate a happy mind, how can we renounce the unhappy one? We therefore need to think well on the benefits of voluntarily accepting suffering and make a strong determination to not allow anger and frustration to arise, no matter what happens around us.

It is very easy to let a day go by without practicing patience, then a week, a month, a year. Before we know it, our whole life has gone and then, suddenly, unexpectedly, death happens and we have never developed patience in our mind, despite all the teachings we have studied and retreats we have done. At the time of death it’s too late to regret not developing patience.

What we can do now in a very practical way is to watch our mind, and the moment it is disturbed by somebody or something, by understanding the terrible effects of anger, we determine to not allow even a moment of anger to arise. We can make a plan to do this for a certain time each day and gradually increase it. If we train our mind in patience in that way, doing whatever we can to overcome any angry thought that arises, by keeping at it, change will definitely happen, year by year. Seeing how there is so much more peace now that the angry mind does not arise gives us the determination to practice patience even more. Then, thinking back on how we once would have become angry from one sharp word from a colleague at work or from the noise of branches tapping on our window disturbing our sleep, we will wonder why we ever got so angry. It is just a matter of practice.

Cover of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s book The Six Perfections

Learn more about Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s The Six Perfections: The Practice of the Bodhisattvas, including ordering information for the paperback and hardcover editions, on Wisdom Publication’s website:
https://wisdomexperience.org/product/the-six-perfections/

You can also find The Six Perfections as an ebook in the Foundation Store (shop.fpmt.org).

Watch the ongoing video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation and find links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more.

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 Zopa Rinpoche and Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi, nunnery abbot, with nuns who have completed their studies at Khachoe Ghakyil Ling, Nepal, November 2021. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

In the following short video from a teaching given in Madrid, Spain, in 2018, Lama Zopa Rinpoche discusses what it means to truly practice Dharma.

At beginning of this video, Rinpoche recalls how, many years ago while staying at Lawudo in Nepal, he read the text “At the Very Beginning, Thought Transformation Opening the Door of Dharma.” Due to reading this text, Rinpoche reviewed his life to check whether he had practiced actual Dharma and realized that nothing he had done up to that point was Dharma.

In the video, Rinpoche then recommends to students that if they are planning to do retreat they should familiarize themselves with this text. (Rinpoche mentions his books The Door to Satisfaction and How to Practice Dharma for more on this topic.)

Rinpoche then tells the story of a practitioner who met Gyalwa Dromtonpa, the translator of Atisha in Tibet. Each time this student met Dromtonpa, regardless of whether the student had read a text, meditated, or circumambulated a stupa, Dromtonpa told the student that what he had done was good, but it would be even better to practice Dharma. Eventually the student asked what Dromtonpa meant by that. Dromtonpa said, “Renounce this life.”

Rinpoche explains how all our problems come from our attachment to this life, and that our attachment creates unbelievable suffering for us. It leads to rebirth in lower realms. So we must renounce our attachment, Rinpoche says, we must give up the root of our problems.

“That is the start of Dharma practice,” Rinpoche says. “Then on the basis of that you develop [your practice]. On the basis of that, you achieve enlightenment. You come to omniscient mind. Then you benefit numberless sentient beings and bring them to enlightenment.”

What it means to practice Dharma is the first and most important thing to know, Rinpoche explains. Otherwise, there is the danger that the time that you do retreat or stay in a monastery and study is wasted when you don’t know how to practice holy Dharma.

Watch this teaching in the video “The Real Meaning of Practicing the Dharma”:

The above video is extracted from a teaching given on October 21, 2018, in Madrid, Spain. You can find more blogs with short video clips from Rinpoche’s teaching as well as the complete collection of these “Essential Extracts” videos on FPMT.org.

Watch videos from the ongoing series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation and find links to transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more. Read an in-depth summary of Rinpoche’s thought transformation teachings given in 2020 in the Mandala 2021 article “The Time to Practice Is Now.”

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 Zopa Rinpoche and Khadro-la offering Tara Puja at Tara Temple in Kathmandu, Nepal, November 2021. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

With the new year approaching, many of us are reflecting on the past year— rejoicing in the blessings we received, and also assessing mistakes we have made. Fortunately, we have methods at our disposal to help us purify negative karma we have created. We can utilize these practices daily, and also as a way to enter the new year with a renewed sense of resolve to be the best versions of ourselves, so we can be of most benefit to others. 

During the ongoing video Thought Transformation Teachings that Lama Zopa Rinpoche has been offering from Kopan Monastery in Nepal, Rinpoche has, on several occasions, talked about purification practice. In “The Time to Practice is Now,” a detailed, overarching summary of the 2020 teachings published in Mandala, Rinpoche discusses the many benefits of having a perfect human rebirth, including how it grants us the opportunity to purify negative karma. Here’s an excerpt from this summary:

Rinpoche explains that having this one-time opportunity makes us unbelievably fortunate—a perfect human rebirth is more precious than the whole sky filled with wish-granting jewels. This is because even skies of wish-granting jewels don’t have the power to purify our negative karma and save us from the lower realms, nor can they give us liberation from samsara and enlightenment, but having a perfect human rebirth can do this.

We have been creating negative karma from beginningless rebirths, which is why it is so important to do purification practices in this life—before our negative karma ripens. Once it ripens, there’s nothing we can do; we must experience the result. Therefore, we need to do a purification practice every day. There are many practices we can do for purification, including Vajrasattva practice, prostrations to the Thirty-Five Confession Buddhas, and others. Although these formal purification practices are extremely effective in purifying our negative karma, Rinpoche explains that the most powerful thing we can do to purify our negative karma is to follow our guru’s advice and please our guru. But if we don’t realize how valuable and important these practices are and that having a perfect human rebirth gives us the perfect opportunity to do them, we might think it is better to spend our time at the beach swimming in the water like a fish!

Watch Rinpoche discuss the importance of purification practices in “Purify Now Because You Can Die Anytime”:

Watch the ongoing video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation on FPMT.org and find links to transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more. Read our summary article on Rinpoche’s 2020 teachings “The Time to Practice Is Now.”

You can find resources to support your purification practice on the Practices for Purification page:
https://fpmt.org/education/prayers-and-practice-materials/purification/

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 Zopa Rinpoche in the stupa garden at Kopan Monastery, November 2021. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

In the following short video from a teaching given in Singapore in 2018, Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains the vast benefits of practicing bodhicitta. Here’s a summary of this teaching:

Lama Zopa Rinpoche discusses how having the mind of bodhicitta is the basis for all the happiness and peace of all sentient beings. Our bodhicitta eliminates the suffering of sentient beings.

It is important to understand, Rinpoche explains, how generating bodhicitta in everyday life leads to the happiness of all sentient beings. With the motivation of bodhicitta every action becomes worthwhile and rich. Any action done with bodhicitta collects skies of merit. Rinpoche emphasizes that when you practice bodhicitta, everyone is included, not even the tiniest fly is left out.

Reciting just one OM MANI PADME HUM with bodhicitta can benefit everyone. Rinpoche points out that we should become aware of how amazing this incredible benefit of practicing bodhicitta is.

When you practice bodhicitta, your life is unbelievably meaningful and useful. It is the most healthy and best life. “Living life with bodhicitta is the happiest life, you understand?” Rinpoche says. When you die with bodhicitta there is no problem. You die happy and your death also becomes meaningful. Whatever one does, even going to a party, should be done with the motivation of bodhicitta and be dedicated for the enlightenment of every sentient being.

Watch the video “About the Importance of Bodhichitta”:

The above video is extracted from a teaching given on September 19, 2018 at Amitabha Buddhist Centre in Singapore. You can find more blogs with short video clips from Rinpoche’s teaching as well as the complete collection of these “Essential Extracts” videos on FPMT.org.

Watch videos from the series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation and find links to transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more. Read an in-depth summary of Rinpoche’s thought transformation teachings given in 2020 in the Mandala 2021 article “The Time to Practice Is Now.”

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 Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Khachoe Ghakyil Nunnery, Nepal, November 2021. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

In the following short video from a teaching Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave in Munich, Germany, in 2018, Rinpoche explains the shortcomings of self cherishing and the benefits of cherishing others.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins by talking about the great bodhisattva Togme Sangpo, who said that all suffering comes from cherishing the I. Cherishing the I is the door to the suffering of oneself and of others. Only thinking of “me” and “When can I be happy?” causes suffering, not only harming yourself but harming other sentient beings. We have been creating this suffering since beginningless lifetimes.

We can change this by developing the attitude to serve others. Thinking about making others happy opens the door to all happiness for ourselves up to enlightenment. When you understand that the purpose of your life is to benefit others, everything changes. “The minute you change from the self-cherishing thought to cherishing others, right there, you don’t have to go anywhere, right there you found your happiness, you achieved happiness,” Rinpoche says.

Then referring to Shantideva’s Bodhicharyavatara, Rinpoche says that if you wish to quickly guide yourself and others, then you should do the practice of exchanging yourself for others. You change the self-cherishing thought into cherishing others. You should do this practice with your mind, and it should be done secretly. “You don’t advertise ‘I’m practicing bodhicitta,’” Rinpoche says. “You don’t announce it to the world. You just do it mentally.”

In closing Rinpoche says that whether it is one insect or one person, happiness and enlightenment come from cherishing others.

Watch the video “Open the Door to Your Happiness Now”:

The above video is extracted from a teaching given on November 10, 2018, in Munich, Germany. (You can watch more from Rinpoche’s 2018 European tour online.) You can find more blogs with short video clips from Rinpoche’s teaching as well as the complete collection of these “Essential Extracts” videos on FPMT.org.

The morning meditation Rinpoche refers to in this teaching is The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment).

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 Zopa Rinpoche in the stupa garden at Kopan Monastery, November 2021. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrote this letter to a student who was in the middle of a relationship break-up.

Hi, I think you are having a great realization of life. May I tell you little bit about this, how it is a great realization, a discovery—actually you are on the Discovery Channel. This helps you to realize how samsara is in the nature of suffering, the three types of suffering and the six types of suffering. There is nothing definite in samsara, and you can never get satisfaction from samsaric pleasures, perfections, enjoyments, materials, or friends.

This realization becomes the cause for generating renunciation; it becomes the basis for generating great compassion; it becomes the basis for bodhichitta and for achieving the entire Mahayana path. Because this higher path has skies of qualities, you can achieve enlightenment, then you can enlighten all suffering beings, and before that you can liberate them from samsaric suffering.

Now you can see how all sentient beings’ happiness, including great enlightenment, comes from this root that you are discovering. WOW! I was saying how it is so positive, it is incredible. It is an extremely important discovery in your life. It is a very important education, something very precious that you need, that we need. Now there is only great joy. You can see how she is most incredibly kind, giving you enlightenment.

This advice “Relationship Break-Up” was originally published in “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book” on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive (LamaYeshe.com).

Watch the ongoing video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation on FPMT.org and find links to transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more.

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 Zopa Rinpoche with Rigsel Rinpoche (on right) and other young monks, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, November 2021. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

In the following short video recorded during the 2018 retreat at Great Stupa of Universal Compassion in Australia, Lama Zopa Rinpoche responds to a question about how to practice patience:

In order to practice patience, we first must have a strong understanding of how harmful anger is, Rinpoche explains. If we don’t understand the danger of anger, then we won’t be persuaded to practice patience.

We need to think about the negative karma that is created by anger. However when we are angry, we don’t care about karma and are capable of doing terrible actions. That is why we need to understand that this nonvirtue results in future suffering and causes so many problems. “What you have to remember is this, how the anger is so harmful. First you have to recognize that,” Rinpoche says.

Then, quoting the great bodhisattva Shantideva’s Bodhicharyavatara, Rinpoche says, “‘For a thousand eons you made offerings to the Gone to Bliss Ones and made charity to other sentient beings, for a thousand eons, so merits collected by making offerings to Buddha and charity to other sentient beings, by rising anger one second it destroys all the merits.’ … You understand? It completely gets destroyed. You have to understand how anger is so dangerous.”

Not only does anger create future suffering, it destroys our merit. So we need to develop our understanding of the results of anger to motivate us to practice patience, which will change how we see the object of our anger.

Watch the video “How Anger and Patience Relate to Each Other”:

The above video is extracted from a teaching given on May 10, 2018, during the retreat at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion in Bendigo, Australia. You can find more short video clips of Rinpoche’s teachings in the “Essential Extracts” video collection on FPMT.org.

Watch videos from the series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation and find links to transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more. Read an in-depth summary of Rinpoche’s thought transformation teachings given in 2020 in the Mandala 2021 article “The Time to Practice Is Now.”

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.

Domestic turkeys, Vardane-Verino, Adlersky District, Sochi, Russian, October 2016. Photo by SKas, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The American holiday of Thanksgiving is celebrated each year in late November. Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave extensive advice in 2018 on how to help the tens of millions of turkeys being killed for the holiday, and also how to think about this tradition of killing and eating turkeys. Here is an excerpt and short summary from this advice, called “Prayers and Practices to Do for Turkeys at Thanksgiving”:

“On Thanksgiving eve, 2018, the Sangha in Switzerland and I did extensive prayers for those who rely on me, those for whom I promised to pray, those whose names were given to me, and, in particular, all the turkeys killed for Thanksgiving. We also did Vajrasattva purification, the King of Prayers, and the Amitabha Buddha Prayer to be Reborn in the Land of Bliss. All these practices were dedicated for all beings, but especially for all the turkeys killed for Thanksgiving,” Rinpoche says.

“If you are Buddhist, or just someone who does not want to suffer now or in endless future lives as well, having to experience unbelievably suffering, you need to purify your past negative karma and stop creating any more so that you will not be reborn as a turkey over and over again. … If you do have to eat turkey because of some family obligation, then at least do some mantras and prayers to benefit the turkeys, such as the four immeasurables with tonglen. Otherwise, if you just enjoy eating turkey together with the rest of the Americans who are not Buddhist, who do not know Dharma, who have not generated compassion for the turkeys, you create much negative karma.”

To purify past negative karma, Rinpoche gives detailed advice on doing Vajrasattva practice with the four opponent powers. Rinpoche recommends for those who can to take the eight Mahayana precepts. He also recommends reciting prayers from the Eight Prayers to Benefit the Dead, doing a nyung na retreat, reciting the four immeasurable and tonglen, reciting the Golden Light Sutra and Vajra Cutter Sutra, doing Chenrezig practice and Medicine Buddha puja, and the recitation of several specific mantras. Rinpoche also explains how to dedicate your practice in order to purify the already created negative karma to be reborn as a turkey and to not create such karma in the future.

“These are simple methods, but they have unbelievably profound benefits, like the sky. You can also do more or different practices as well. These are just suggestions. You can also do these practices at Christmas or on other occasions where turkeys and so many other animals are sacrificed and eaten,” Rinpoche explains.

For links to practice materials and detailed instructions, see “Prayers and Practices to Do for Turkeys at Thanksgiving”:
https://fpmt.org/teachers/zopa/advice/turkeys-at-thanksgiving/

Further Commentary and Advice for Thanksgiving

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, November 2021. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

by Lama Zopa Rinpoche

I don’t think the general population of America accepts clairvoyance, but if it did, people would understand where all the sufferings, such as depression, come from. The way people normally think—for example, what causes depression—is very limited. They only think about things that are to do with this life. If they had clairvoyance they could see much deeper; they could see things such as past and future lives. People normally think of only this life, not past and future lives.

In the past, many of the turkeys that Americans are eating were Americans who in the past had killed turkeys. Often it could even be a past family member that they are now eating.

There’s a sutra story about Buddha’s disciple Shariputra, who excelled in wisdom. Once when he was on his alms round he looked into a family’s house and saw that the father, who used to catch fish in his backyard pond, had died and been reborn as a fish in that pond. The mother, his wife, who had been very attached to the home, had also died and been reborn as the family dog. And the son’s enemy, who had been very attached to the son’s wife, had died and been reborn as their child. The son was holding the child, his former enemy, eating the fish, his late father, and beating the dog, his late mother, while it chewed on fish bones. Shariputra then observed, “The son is eating his father’s flesh, beating his mother with a stick, and cuddling his enemy on his lap—samsaric existence makes me laugh.”

If we have animals we have to remember this story and take care of them well. It is very important to understand the benefits of taking care of our pets and other animals by giving them food and drink. Think that you are making charity and don’t just do it out of attachment, thinking that you love the shape of the animals or something, doing everything simply for your own happiness. It’s the same with looking after your children. You create a child with attachment, for your own happiness, thinking how your life would be unbelievably happy if you had a child. Then you take care of the child, but it is for your own happiness.

It is also important to recognize and remember your animals’ most unbelievable kindness, how they have been kind to you in three ways, and then with that awareness give them food and drink. First recite OṂ MAṆI PADME HŪṂ and then blow over the food and drink to bless it. If you have mani pills, it’s good to crush them and put them into the food and drink, or even add blessed water. You don’t have to get blessed water from a lama; you can make it yourself. Whether or not you have daily commitments, recite OṂ MAṆI PADME HŪṂ and other mantras, such as OṂ PADMO UṢHṆĪṢHA VIMALE HŪṂ PHAṬ, the Mitrugpa mantra and so forth, and then blow on the water. You can recite however many repetitions of each mantra you want, like seven, ten, fifteen, or more, blow on the animal’s food or water and make prayers as well. Similarly, you can keep a bottle of water nearby and when you’ve done your commitments you can blow on the water and then use that to put on the food and water that you give to the animals.

Then make this dedication prayer:

Due to all the past, present, and future merits collected by me and all the merits of the three times collected by numberless buddhas and numberless sentient beings, may all these animals (you can also include your family members, especially your father and mother) never ever get reborn back into the lower realms but be reborn in a pure land where they can achieve enlightenment, or, if not, at least receive a perfect human body, meet the Mahayana teachings, and a perfectly qualified guru revealing the unmistaken path to enlightenment, and by pleasing the holy mind of the virtuous friend may they attain enlightenment as quickly as possible.

Finally, please remember the unbelievable benefits of making charity of food to the animals. As the Buddha said, “Anybody who makes charity well during the period my teachings exist will receive great enjoyments for 80,000 eons, even if the material that person offers is merely the size of a hair. That person will be free from pain and disease, will enjoy great happiness, will be enriched with all manner of desirable things, and will eventually achieve the result: peerless cessation and complete enlightenment.”

This advice has been extracted from the page “Prayers and Practices to Do for Turkeys at Thanksgiving,” which shares a teaching and advice given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche in Switzerland in 2018. Scribed by Holly Ansett. Edited by Nicholas Ribush, November 2020.

For more mantras and resources for mantra recitation, visit FPMT Education Services’ page on mantras. You can find a full catalogue of all FPMT prayers, practices, and advice materials on FPMT.org.

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 Zopa Rinpoche and Khadro-la doing puja on Lhabab Duchen at Swayambunath, Nepal, October 2021. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

In the following short video from the 2019 Vajaryogini retreat at Institute Vajra Yogini, Lama Zopa Rinpoche guides us through the reasoning why we should be very grateful to those who hate or abuse us:

When you understand that the person who you call “enemy” is an obscured, suffering sentient being, then you can generate compassion based on that understanding, Rinpoche explains. Generating compassion is the basis for all the buddhas and all our good karma and happiness, Rinpoche says, describing the process for this step by step.

“Present and future [happiness], up to and including enlightenment, everything came from your good karma, that which is the buddhas’ holy actions. So your past, present, and future, all three-time happiness, you receive from the buddhas,” Rinpoche explains. “So a buddha came from a bodhisattva, a bodhisattva came from bodhichitta, bodhichitta came from great compassion, great compassion is generated by depending on, by the kindness of, the person whom you call ‘enemy,’ who abuses you, who doesn’t love you, who is angry with you.”

The person you think of as “enemy” is also the object of your practice of patience. Instead of anger towards that person, you can develop your patience and complete the paramita of patience. “If you cherish that person, you achieve enlightenment from that person. That person gives you enlightenment,” Rinpoche says.

Rinpoche also emphasizes how important it is to have compassion for all beings. He then explains that to have an actual Dharma practice, one that isn’t just words, you must cherish those that you don’t like or who hurt you.

“If you don’t cherish that person whom you call enemy, there is no enlightenment at all. It is sooooo important to cherish that [person]. If you are able to cherish them, then there is enlightenment,” Rinpoche explains. “Those things are the most important practice in our daily life!”

Watch the video “It Is Only Due to the Kindness of Your Enemy That You Can Reach Enlightenment”:

Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.

The above video is extracted from a teaching given on May 16, 2019, during the Vajrayogini retreat at Institut Vajra Yogini in France. You can find more blogs with short video clips from Rinpoche’s teaching as well as the complete collection of these “Essential Extracts” videos on FPMT.org.

Watch videos from the series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation and find links to transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more. Read an in-depth summary of Rinpoche’s thought transformation teachings given in 2020 in the Mandala 2021 article “The Time to Practice Is Now.”

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.

Rinpoche in the stupa garden at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, November 2021. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has been teaching on refuge during his recent video teachings. Rinpoche is currently offering teachings at Kopan Nunnery and taking a break from recording video teachings. During this break we will offer Essential Extracts of Rinpoche’s teachings. In the following teaching extract, from the 2017 Light of the Path Retreat, Lama Zopa Rinpoche discusses the practice of refuge and how compassion should be the root of all our activities:

First, Rinpoche explains, we need to develop our awareness that we have been experiencing the oceans of suffering of each of the six realms numberless times since beginningless rebirths. We then think of how unbearable this suffering is and that is why we rely on the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha for refuge. This is the small scope way of taking refuge.

There are also numberless sentient beings in all the six realms experiencing the oceans of samsaric sufferings since beginningless rebirths just like us. We need to feel how unbearable this is. Then relying on Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, request that all these sentient beings become free from samsaric suffering. This is the Mahayana way of taking refuge—compassion for the numberless sentient beings.

During your refuge practice, Rinpoche says, you should remember your friend or parent who is dying, your child who is sick or having problems, those who have already died, all who are suffering. You can think about those who are being affected by hurricanes or earthquakes and so forth. Remember them when you take refuge and then rely on the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha to free them from oceans of samsaric sufferings.

The more people who are practicing loving kindness and compassion, the more peace there will be in the world due to the results of their actions. This is why we have FPMT centers, Rinpoche says. Dharma centers help our minds, help us turn away from the self-cherishing thought. At the Dharma center, we can learn how to have a compassionate motivation and receive teachings on emptiness. Both of these are needed to achieve buddhahood, the total cessation of obscurations and completion of all the realizations, and to do perfect work for sentient beings.

So our aim is to achieve enlightenment in order to bring all sentient beings to peerless happiness. That should also be the main aim of the FPMT organization. To accomplish all of this, Rinpoche says, our root is compassion, then due to that, all the wisdom will happen.

Watch the video “Take Refuge in the Three Jewel to Be Free from Suffering”:

The above video is extracted from a teaching given on September 8, 2017, at the Light of the Path Retreat in North Carolina, US. You can find more blogs with short video clips from Rinpoche’s teaching as well as the complete collection of these “Essential Extracts” videos on FPMT.org.

Watch videos from the series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation and find links to transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more. Read an in-depth summary of Rinpoche’s thought transformation teachings given in 2020 in the Mandala 2021 article “The Time to Practice Is Now.”

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 Zopa Rinpoche, Maratika, Nepal, September 2021. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche was invited to write a foreword for a translation of Lama Tsongkhapa’s Illuminating the Intent: An Exposition of Candrakirti’s Entering the Middle Way. Lama Tsongkhapa completed this text a year before his death, and it is recognized by the Tibetan tradition as his final standpoint on many philosophical questions. In particular, Lama Tsongkhapa draws clear distinctions between the views of the Madhyamaka and Cittamatra schools. Lama Zopa Rinpoche composed the following as a foreword to this first full English translation of Lama Tsongkhapa’s important philosophical text.

From the text, Having Realized and Revealed How Things—I, Action, Object, and Phenomena—Are Dependent Arising (tenjung in Tibetan), Lama Tsongkhapa not only praised the Buddha, but by revealing that, numberless sentient beings have not only been freed from samsara but have become enlightened, are being enlightened and will be enlightened in the future. It is said there, how much world suffering there is, the root is ignorance—unseeing—and for anyone, by seeing that, the world suffering gets stopped, gets ceased. Therefore, Buddha has taught dependent arising—tenjung. It has a very important meaning. “Ten” meaning “depending on,” eliminates eternalism, existence from its own side. Even one atom does not exist from its own side, at all. Then, because of that, “jung”—“arising”—eliminates nihilism. Hence all phenomena exist in mere name, merely labeled by the valid mind because there’s a valid base existing, and even that exists in mere name.

Lama Tsongkhapa said in the lamrim, that on the valid basis, exaggeration occurs. By exaggerating good or bad and specially, by exaggerated good or bad, attachment and anger arises. The way these concepts hold their objects, as proved by logicians, make them wrong concepts because their objects do not exist according to what they believe and hold on to. So it clearly shows that we live our life in suffering because we live life with attachment and anger, with concepts that hold objects that do not exist at all. All these concepts hold objects that do not exist at all. This means all these concepts are totally wrong because they are built on the basis of ignorance, holding I, action, object, phenomena as existing from their own side, which is totally non-existent. This proves ignorance is a totally wrong concept.

We sentient beings do not like suffering and want happiness. Hence we should recognize and realize that believing this ignorance—the root of samsara—is a totally hallucinated mind, a wrong concept. Not only should we realize this, we need to try to achieve special insight, a meditation on emptiness unified with samatha. This is achieved by depending first on the perfect higher training of meditation—samatha—and for that we need pure morality, the higher training of pure morality.

Therefore, the Middle Way, devoid of eternalism and nihilism taught by Buddha and specially propagated by Nagajuna and after that Chandrakirti, is here clearly explained by Lama Tsongkhapa. He explains very deeply, like the oceans, with a very deep and wide view, clearly what is the middle view is. The root text was written by Chandrakirti, the great pandit from Nalanda, and its commentary was made by Lama Tsongkhapa, in Clarifying the Intention.

In spite of how many degrees one receives from the most famous universities in the world, if one hasn’t studied these teachings, not elaborately, not even middling and not even the essence, then one is totally ignorant, like a pig. One becomes like that. You live your life, not only from birth but from beginningless rebirths, only in hallucination, acting with body, speech, and mind out of this ignorance, in a total hallucination, thinking things exist from their own side. We have suffered from beginningless rebirths, experiencing oceans of each of the six realms suffering, by not being enlightened in this subject. With the wrong concept, then again endlessly we suffer in samsara. Of course we don’t want that, so then one must study these subjects, as much as one can. It is the most important thing, more than money or any worldly pleasure in the life. Please study with all the hardships.

If you are like a pig, if you are too ignorant in the middle way, the Madhyamika view, how can you benefit others, let alone become liberated from the oceans of samsaric suffering. No way. No matter how much hardship you bear, it’s worthwhile to study. The more and more you study, the quicker it is to realize emptiness, the quicker to be free from samsara and quicker to achieve enlightenment. It’s quicker to be able to generate very strong compassion, great compassion to the sentient beings, and then bodhicitta. Those two are the two wings to go for enlightenment, to go to buddhahood—the total cessation of obscurations and completion of all the realizations—the peerless happiness. The swans with two wings can cross the ocean so like that, with these two wings—right view, the middle view, and bodhicitta—on the basis of these, you can cross the oceans of samsaric suffering and go to enlightenment.

Through developing the higher training of wisdom you can achieve the right-seeing path where you have wisdom directly perceiving emptiness and then by developing that, it removes the obscurations that that path needs to remove, and by developing that path further, you purify the obscurations, removed by the path of meditation. After that comes no-more-learning, whereby one has totally ceased the seeds of delusion and karma. That’s how you become totally free from the oceans of sufferings of samsara, forever.

For everyone who reads this, most welcome to complete the works for self and for others, achieved only when you accomplish this. I hope this book, the translation of which was done by His Holiness’s translator Geshe Thupten Jinpa, will open the mind of wisdom to all the suffering of obscured sentient beings.

—Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche

This foreword is Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s words verbatim and has only been edited to accord with the FPMT Education Style Guide in terms of spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.

Lama Tsongkhapa’s Illuminating the Intent: An Exposition Of Candrakirti’s Entering The Middle Way, edited by Geshe Thupten Jinpa as part of the Library of Tibetan Classics, is available as a PDF and eBook through the Foundation Store (shop.FPMT.org). The hardcover version of this book may be ordered directly from Wisdom Publications (WisdomExperience.org).

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 Zopa Rinpoche during the recording of a video teaching at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, October 2021. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:

Rinpoche begins this teaching by reminding us of the reason for these teachings on refuge: a young girl in China, as well as some others, have requested Rinpoche to offer the refuge ceremony. Rinpoche is using this opportunity to offer these refuge teachings to all of us in order to remind and persuade us to create less nonvirtue and to practice virtue.

The real meaning of life is to benefit others and not harm them. It is not enough to achieve liberation from samsara for oneself alone. You need to liberate every single numberless sentient being from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment. To do this, you need omniscience. In omniscience, you have perfect power and infinite compassion embracing all sentient beings. Therefore, you listen to the teachings for every single sentient being without even one single hell being left out. This purpose becomes like the limitless sky with no end.

By going for refuge to the Three Precious Sublime Ones (Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha) you can become free from the lower realms, from samsara, and from the lower nirvana; and you can achieve enlightenment and free numberless sentient beings from oceans of samsarmic sufferings.

Rinpoche resumes the discussion of the section “Taking Refuge and Not Asserting Another Religion” from “Day Twelve” of Phabongkha Rinpoche’s Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. Rinpoche picks up the discussion with the sentence, “In short, taking refuge is not only reciting words.” Rinpoche then offers examples of what is not taking refuge. He explains that taking refuge is not merely reciting words like a robot, which has no mind.

Rinpoche continues by considering whether what robots say can be Dharma. Only a Buddha can give advice according to people’s different levels of mind. To help sentient beings exactly without mistake, you need to achieve enlightenment. You need to understand subtle karma by dispelling the obscurations to seeing it. You need omniscience to give answers according to the level of minds of numberless sentient beings. Therefore, you can’t make a robot like a buddha, Rinpoche explains. But if a robot is filled by learned people with answers based on Dharma, then a robot can benefit people, similar to how a Dharma book benefits people.

Rinpoche takes the opportunity to remind us that taking sentient beings around holy objects is one way to benefit them—in fact, this is very easy and creates the cause for them to reach enlightenment. This is a way to repay the kindness of sentient beings, by helping them in this way. Taking insects around holy objects is so precious. Imagine all of the numberless sentient beings that you find in your bed, on your body, in your room—this is like finding a wish-granting jewel, Rinpoche says.

You can use images of deities to bless sentient beings in your home. You can also create a box with mantras on it to purify the negative karma of beings that go in the box. (Rinpoche discusses Namgyalma mantra and Lotus Pinnacle of Amoghapasha mantra  specifically.) Rinpoche also explains that if there are many insects in your house, that you find while you are cleaning, for example, you can put them in a bag and take them around holy objects.

Rinpoche discusses the kindnesses of sentient beings, who since beginningless rebirths have all been your mother:

1. The kindness of giving you a body numberless times from beginningless rebirths, particularly a human body.
2. The kindness of protecting your life from hundreds of dangers, every day.
3. The kindness of bearing hardships.
4. The kindness of giving you an education.

Rinpoche then overviews the four results of killing even one sentient being and provides commentary on each:

1. The ripened-aspect result of killing is rebirth in the lower realms.
2. The possessed result of killing is living in a place where there is fighting or disease and where food and medicine have negative side effects.
3. Experiencing the result similar to the cause of killing is being killed.
4. Creating the result similar to the cause of killing is you will kill again.

Sentient beings are also very kind to you when they are not your mother. Rinpoche discusses these kindnesses offered by others to us:

1. The kindness of giving shelter.
2. The kindness of giving clothing.
3. The kindness of giving food.

Rinpoche returns to discussing refuge. Those who don’t believe in reincarnation and karma have to practice having a good heart. They can at least do whatever they can to benefit others and make life beneficial to them. Those who do believe in reincarnation and karma have to practice Dharma. Any meditation should begin with refuge and bodhichitta. 

When you truly go for refuge, Rinpoche explains, you want to be saved because you are afraid of the lower realms and samsara. You also have total faith that the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha can guide you to safety, and you want to rely on them. From Phabongkha Rinpoche’s Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand:

Like someone who has made mistakes seeks help from an influential leader, being afraid of the evil-gone realms, samsara, and so forth and trusting that the Rare Sublime Ones have the capacity to protect you, you must develop the mental factor intention that totally relies upon these protectors. This is the criterion for having taken refuge.

Whether or not you generate refuge in your heart depends on whether or not you generate that [intention] in your heart. Therefore, don’t be like those who collect a hundred thousand words of refuge but do not generate the entity of refuge in their heart.

“[Refuge] depends on whether you have that feeling so strong that wants to rely on Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha,” Rinpoche says. Those who have a realization of refuge always have mindfulness of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—even on the moon! They never waste time, whether or not they are in a suffering place or a happy place. They are constantly collecting virtue with actions of body, speech, and mind.

We invite you to go deeper into the topics presented here, plus many others, by watching Rinpoche’s video and reading the full transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.

Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “Taking Refuge Is Not Merely Reciting Words Like a Robot”:

Rinpoche teachings on refuge will conclude with Rinpoche offering refuge in a video. Those wishing to take refuge with Rinpoche should continue to watch these teachings on refuge. Past teachings on the topic of refuge are also available to watch and rewatch.

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• The text Lama Zopa Rinpoche is teaching on in this video comes from Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand by Pabongka Rinpoche (Wisdom Publications, 2006).
• Find Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, and Russian
• Dedication verses

Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation and find links to videos in transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/announcements/resources-for-coronavirus-pandemic/advice-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche-for-coronavirus/

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.