Advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Lama Zopa Rinpoche reciting mantras to a young buffalo that he liberated for His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Kopan monks and nuns, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, August 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 that we are so fortunate to have received a precious and perfect human rebirth. While it is precious, it is also fragile and can be ended at any time with death. In this precious life we have received teachings on how we should not harm any sentient being, and not just the ones we love and like to help, but including those we don’t like such as mice, rats, spiders, cockroaches, and mosquitoes. When mosquitoes come near your ears you become very concerned with the real I, which doesn’t even exist in mere name. This has been happening since beginningless rebirths. So much suffering, including all wars, comes from believing in the real I! Even spiders and ants suffer due to believing in the real I.

The pandemic and all of the disasters of the world are happening because of ignorance. This all comes from the mind. Therefore, you have to take care of the mind: don’t let it go berserk. If you don’t want to suffer, if you don’t want bad things in the world, if you don’t want problems with the environment, if you want to make a happy world, then take care of the mind.

Rinpoche shares several stories about how great bodhisattvas are able to manipulate the elements or perform actions that look like miracles. They are able to do this due to their minds. Whether you make the world more peaceful or not depends on your mind. Rinpoche also shares the story of how the young incarnation of His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama said, “I’m the one who works for all beings” to the lama Keutsang Rinpoche when he came to check whether the four-year-old child recognized him. Rinpoche expressed being moved to tears when he heard that His Holiness had said that as a young child.

Rinpoche then discusses verses 5.4-5.5 of Bodhicharyavatara:

Tigers, lions, elephants, bears,
Snakes, and all enemies,
The guardians of hell beings,
Evil spirits, and likewise cannibals,

Are all fastened
By fastening only this mind.
They are all subdued
By subduing only this mind.

Rinpoche urges us to write these verses down in our prayer books so we will see them every day. Especially when we are angry or selfish, or when we have so much attachment. When we subdue our minds, everything is subdued. When we have control over our minds, we are free from fear. By controlling our minds and making them free from attachment and anger, from the self-cherishing thought, and from the ignorance holding the I as real when it’s not, then, all those who would otherwise harm us are subdued.

We produce all the suffering we experience with our mind, so the solution for problems, harm, enemies, and fear is to pacify the mind.

Verse 5.12cd of Bodhicharyavatara says:

If you subdue the mind of anger alone,
It is like you have subdued all your enemies.

And as Nagarjuna said:

If you kill your anger,
You kill all your enemies.

We have to learn this if we want to bring peace and happiness to the world. Otherwise, you just talk, talk, talk. Everything depends on whether you control your mind or not. Rinpoche translates verse 5.3 of Bodhicharyavatara as:

If you fasten the elephant of your mind
With the rope of remembrance all the time,
All fears will become nonexistent
And all virtues will come into your hands.

By subduing the mind, which is like a crazy elephant, you can achieve anything you want. Whether or not you experience samsara or nirvana, hell or enlightenment—this all depends on whether or not you control your mind.

Verse 5.17 of Bodhicharyavatara says:

If someone doesn’t know the supreme principal of the Dharma,
The secrecy of the mind,
Even if they wish to achieve happiness and destroy suffering,
They will wander in samsara without meaning.

and verse 5.18cd:

Except for conduct protecting the mind
What is the use of so many conducts?

Rinpoche explains that all the capacities of the mind are based on keeping the higher training of morality. He shares the story of how Lama Yeshe stopped a fire with his mind. He also shares a story about how Geshe Lama Konchog saved a child, who all the doctors said was going to die, by the power of his mind through doing puja. The West needs to learn that world peace comes from the mind, not from outside influence.

Discussing the verses below, Rinpoche says that when you don’t keep and protect your vows and your practice of morality, you will be criticized by all the buddhas, and your friends will scold you. You will even criticize yourself! But if you keep pure morality, all the buddhas will praise you and all of your prayers will succeed.

Chen Nga Lodro Gyaltshen, a Kadampa geshe advised in Dulwäi Lung:

Anyone who does not protect their vows
Will be put down by all the buddhas.

All the devas will criticize them as thieves.
Their friends will scold them.

They will even put themselves down.
They will also naturally be worthy of being criticized.

Their bad reputation will pervade all directions.

They won’t hear the holy Dharma.
Even if they hear it, they will quickly forget it.
They won’t generate the realizations of the grounds and paths.
While regretting, they will die and go to evil migrations.

In dreams, they will see vicious things
And, with suffering, they will be killed.

The devas will not protect them.

When they are in the presence of holy beings,
They will be scared and feel regret for their mistakes.

Since humans and non-humans will examine them,
They will be able to quickly harm them.

They will be unable to find enjoyments without difficulties.
They also won’t achieve what they wish.

Those who keep pure morality
Will be praised by all the buddhas
And all their wishes will be fulfilled.
Apply what was explained before to them.

During the dedications, Rinpoche shares the story about a young buffalo he recently liberated and named Bodhichitta. This buffalo showed great devotion to Rinpoche and sat down at Rinpoche’s feet when Rinpoche recited mantras. The buffalo had tears in both eyes during the recitation. You can read Rinpoche’s explanation of why he liberated this buffalo and also watch a short video of Rinpoche reciting prayers for him. 

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 “Don’t Let Your Mind Go Berserk”:
https://youtu.be/4z0txtA354g

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• The Eight Prayers is a collection of prayers which is commonly recited in the Gelug monastic communities for the recently deceased. King of Prayers, the extraordinary aspiration of the prayer of Samantabhadra, is commonly recited to bring benefit to those who are sick or have just passed away, and for the success of a virtuous project.
• Find Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, and Russian
• Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings

Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 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/

Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”

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 a video teaching on thought transformation, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, August 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:

Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his teachings for ordained Sangha, which are open to all who wish to benefit from his advice. He explains that trying on being Sangha, like trying different foods hoping they bring you happiness, is not being real Sangha. You can enjoy wearing the robes and trying them on, but if it is just like a trip, your mind is not Sangha. If your mind is messy and not healthy, you easily give up your liberation and enlightenment.

Rinpoche then reminds us of the motivation for listening to the teachings. A perfect human rebirth—qualified by the eight freedoms and ten richnesses—is extremely rare, Rinpoche explains. It is not enough for ourselves to be free from the oceans of samsaric sufferings. The real purpose of life is to not harm others and on the basis of that to benefit the numberless sentient beings and free them from the oceans of samsaric sufferings by oneself alone. We listen to the teachings to achieve this.

As Rinpoche explained in his recent teachings, by engaging in nonvirtue, you become habituated to it and do it again. By doing this, you make your future lives sooo difficult. You know that it’s bad, but you can’t stop doing it due to past habituation. In fact, much of your behavior is due to habituation with negative karma, and due to that habituation, it becomes more and more difficult to separate from negative karma. You think only of today’s happiness, not about future lives. Your wrong concept is cheating you, causing you to drown in an ocean of attachment and anger.

The coronavirus manifests in different ways according to one’s karma. Some people have some pain and sickness, some have no symptoms, and some die. Rinpoche discusses some of the different ways the virus has manifested in people he knows, and also the possibility that he had the virus himself just with very mild symptoms. When we meet with suffering, we don’t remember karma. We can even believe killing ourselves is the solution to the pain we are experiencing. When one is having emotional problems, spirits can also harm you. Rinpoche shares some examples of people who have been harmed by spirits.

Rinpoche then reads and gives commentary on the Sutra on Having Perfect Morality. (This starts at 50:19 in the video.)

Referencing Nagarjuna in Letter to a Friend, Rinpoche reminds us again that even great pain in the human realm is nothing compared to a small suffering in the hell realm, and the suffering has to be experienced until the negative karma finishes.

Rinpoche concludes by saying that Sangha are given unbelievable freedom by being able to purify twice a month with sojong, which is the monastics’ confession day. You should think that Guru Shakyamuni Buddha is reciting sojong for you. Because we can’t see Buddha in that aspect, he recites in the form of the abbot. You see the abbot reciting it, but you should know that it is actually Buddha reciting for the Sangha. Buddha is so kind. Unbelievable, most incredible.

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 “By the Force of Habituation, You Uncontrollably Engage in Nonvirtue Again“:
https://youtu.be/Tr_3KGSqTDI

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• You can learn about the international FPMT community of monks and nuns by visiting the International Mahayana Institute website.
• Find Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, and Russian
• Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings

Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 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/

Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”

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 shopping for flower offerings, Boudhanath, Nepal, July 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 video reminding listeners that while this teaching is being given specifically for ordained Sangha, anyone is welcome to take the advice offered.

If you haven’t spent your life with a good heart and a positive mind, Rinpoche warns, and instead spend your life trying this and that until life finishes, then you will go to the lower realms. There are many wrong views available to you in this life. You have to check the quality of these views carefully, the same way you check the quality of clothing or food before you purchase it.

Rinpoche then recounts several stories, including about the building of Lama Yeshe’s stupa at Tushita Meditation Centre, Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche, and Serkong Dorje Chang.

Rinpoche reminds us of the motivation for listening to the teachings—to free the numberless sentient beings from oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment by oneself alone. Therefore, you think of how you must achieve the state of omniscience to do that. Therefore, you are listening to the teachings.

Being attached to sex has not freed you from the oceans of samsaric suffering, Rinpoche observes. Since beginningless times, every sentient being has been one’s own husband, wife, children, and so forth. You have cheated yourself by thinking that the pleasures of this life that you experience are new. You believe you are meeting someone for the first time.

By learning Dharma, you can recognize right and wrong concepts. Usually in the world, any suffering is attributed to outside influences: animals, insects, other people. Rinpoche explains that this is from not knowing Dharma. Learning about Dharma is learning about your life, your mind, and your concepts. It is learning what is the right mind and what is the wrong mind, so you can stop having the wrong mind. Then you can have a healthy, beneficial, harmless, and right life, and have all the good things right up to perfect enlightenment.

You have been totally deceived by your attachment and wrong concepts since beginningless rebirths. Therefore, there is nothing to be attached to. It’s all a hallucination! Since there is nothing to be attached to, you should renounce samsara. Samsaric happiness is only suffering; this is the heart of Buddhism.

You experience suffering until your negative karma finishes, Rinpoche explains. Even great pain in the human realm is nothing compared to a small suffering in the hell realm.

Rinpoche then shares the four suffering results of sexual misconduct:

1. The Ripened-Aspect Result of Sexual Misconduct: This means a rebirth in the lower realms.

2. The Possessed Result of Sexual Misconduct: You are born as a human being but the environment is muddy, dirty, unhealthy, and has contagious diseases and viruses. Even if we just spend five minutes in a place like this, that is the result of past sexual misconduct.

3. Experiencing the Result Similar to the Cause of Sexual Misconduct: However you harmed others, you experience others doing this type of harm to you.

4. Creating the Cause Similar to the Result: This is done due to habituation with the past negative karma of sexual misconduct. Even if you think an action is bad, you do it uncontrollably. By engaging in nonvirtue, you become habituated to it, and do it again and again. This is the same for stealing, telling lies, killing—any negative behavior you’re engaged in.

Buddha’s Teachings on Our Lives card

Even in lay life you can abandon sexual misconduct. There are five lay vows one can take to help abstain from negative actions such as sexual misconduct. In this teaching we are discussing the purpose to become Sangha.

Rinpoche then recites the Phagpa Chulung Rolpai Do Mantra: OṂ HANU PHASHA BHARA HE YE SVĀHĀ. He explains that each time you see this mantra, it purifies your negative karma, one hundred thousand eons!

Rinpoche also holds up the Buddha’s Teachings on Our Lives card and explains that this is so important to have in a room in one’s home, even in the bathroom.

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 “Being Attached to Sex Has Not Freed You from the Oceans of Samsaric Sufferings”:
https://youtu.be/Lmw-Tzymu08

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• You can download the cards Rinpoche mentioned in the teaching from the Foundation Store: Phagpa Chulung Rolpai Do Mantra and Six Syllables of Clairvoyance Mantra PDF  and Buddha’s Teachings on Our Lives PDF.
• Find Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, and Russian
• Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings

Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 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/

Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”

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.

Extensive offerings on Lama Tsongkhapa Day, Kopan Monastery, December 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Among the preliminary practices, only that of water bowl offerings can be done in a group practice and allows one to add the numbers accumulated by the group’s participants into one’s own count.

In 2020, a center director wrote to Lama Zopa Rinpoche asking whether participants in a group water bowl practice, who were doing the practice in their homes, could still count all the water bowls accumulated by the group, even though everyone was doing the practice separately. Rinpoche responded that yes, people can do water bowls separately in their own home as part of a group, and count all the water bowls made by the group participants as their personal accumulation.

To do this properly, Rinpoche explained, the participants would need to know who is in the water bowl practice group and they would all need to be doing the practice at the same time. So it wouldn’t work if one person offered the water bowls but another person in the group hadn’t finished doing their water bowls or if they didn’t do them that day. It needs coordination. For example, everyone who is part of a home water bowl offering group should agree to a specific time by which all the water bowls are completed. Then the water bowls can be collectively offered. If you do it this way, you can count all the bowls of those who are participating as your personal accumulation.

Rinpoche said that when you do the actual offering practice it is best if you not only offer the water bowls you are doing as a group, but all the water bowls at all the FPMT centers, projects, and services, and also Rinpoche’s house. And to have an even more vast offering, you can visualize the universes full of offerings.

The main reason for these practices is purification, Rinpoche explained. And that comes through experiencing difficulties and hardship in what you are doing. Of course, all these offerings create incredible merit when you visualize this way.

Just to be clear, one can’t include the count of all the water bowls in all the centers toward their own accumulation, but one can and should offer them. 

Water bowl offering, Martigny, Switzerland, 2018. Photo by Harald Weichhart.

Several resources are available to support the practice of offering water bowls:

• Please refer to the newly updated booklet Extensive Offering Practice for the water bowl offering practice, which contains the “Actual Offering Prayer ” that is recited when one makes the actual offering.
• The Preliminary Practice of Altar Set-up & Water Bowl Offerings is a booklet that provides an explanation of how to set up a personal altar and how to make water bowl offerings.
• The water bowl offering practice can be done in the conjunction with a guru yoga practice, such as A Daily Meditation on Śākyamuni Buddha, Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga, or Lama Chopa.

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.

Watch Rinpoche’s recent teachings and find links to transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more on the page Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19.

Rinpoche and Khadro-la doing prayer where the Himalayan Buddhist Meditation Centre, the FPMT center in Kathmandu, is going to be, Nepal, July 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:

Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching by referencing this quote by Thogme Sango in Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva:

All sufferings come from desiring happiness for oneself.
Full enlightenment comes from the thought of benefitting others.
Therefore, exchanging one’s own happiness for the suffering of others
Is the practice of bodhisattvas.

Rinpoche gives commentary on this passage and explains that all undesirable things, all the sufferings we experience, come from desiring happiness for oneself. Therefore, exchanging one’s own happiness for the suffering of others is the practice of bodhisattvas.

When pleasure and problems happen, you can see whether or not you are practicing Dharma. When a problem comes, it is like you are completely drowned in the ocean. Instead of thinking of Dharma to solve and overcome your problem, you are “under” the problem, not having control over it. When pleasure comes, you are totally distracted by it, you are under the control of worldly concern and attachment, again—like you are drowning in the ocean. This is when you can see if you are practicing Dharma or not.

Because you are a human being, and not a stone or wood, you can benefit others. Even the ants or mosquitoes—you can make sure not to step on them, you can take them around holy objects, you can do what you can to benefit them. Reciting OM MANI PADME HUM three times and blowing on any sentient being purifies so much negative karma. If you aren’t living to benefit others, you are living a very dry, uninteresting, boring life! Using your life to achieve enlightenment is not boring at all.

Rinpoche then reviews the motivation for receiving oral transmissions and teachings. He also discusses the great yogi Thangtong Gyalpo in preparation for the oral transmissions he gives later in the teaching.

Before the oral transmissions, Rinpoche explains that the benefits of reciting and hearing OM MANI PADME HUM are extensive. Rinpoche lists many of these benefits and provides commentary on each:

• Reciting it one time purifies the four defeats of a fully ordained monk
• Reciting it purifies the five heavy negative karmas without a break
• Reciting it seven times purifies the negative karma of one hundred lifetimes
• Reciting it twenty-one times purifies the negative karma of 1,000 eons
• Reciting it 108 times purifies the negative karma of 40,000 eons
• Anyone who hears it gets a higher rebirth
• When you recite it, your mind is free from expectations and therefore pure

In short, Rinpoche stresses to us that we must recite OM MANI PADME HUM while we still have a perfect human rebirth.

Rinpoche then offers, “a million, zillion, trillion” thanks to everyone who join together on Saturdays for twenty-four hours to recite OM MANI PADME HUM for the COVID-19 pandemic. He also thanks everybody at Chenrezig Institute who arranged all the technical aspects that allow for this to happen online.

Rinpoche ends this video by offering commentary on and the oral transmissions in Tibetan of three prayers of Thangtong Gyalpo: “Liberating Sakya from Disease” (starting at 37:45 in the video), “Words of Truth Pacifying the Danger of Weapons” (39:45), and “A Request to Pacify the Fear of Famine” (42:57). Rinpoche also offers the oral transmission of King of Prayers (1:01:21), Homage to Tathagata Amitabha and Buddha Amitayus, A Brief Prayer to Be Reborn in Sukhavati (1:11:04), and The Array of Sukhavati Pure Land (1:13:15).

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 “A Zillion Thanks to the Sangha for Reciting Manis During the Pandemic”:
https://youtu.be/D8v5VTdAANs

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• Links to the oral transmission texts:
  • The Vajra Speech of Mahasiddha Thangtong Gyalpo: The Blessed Prayer Known as “Liberating Sakya from Disease”
  • The Vajra Speech of Mahasiddha Thangtong Gyalpo: Words of Truth Pacifying the Danger of Weapons
  • The Speech of Mahasiddha Thangtong Gyalpo: A Request to Pacify the Fear of Famine 
  • King of Prayers
  • Homage to Tathagata Amitabha and Buddha Amitayus, A Brief Prayer to Be Reborn in Sukhavati
  • The Array of Sukhavati Pure Land
• Find Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, and Russian
• Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings

Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 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/

Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”

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 giving an online teaching, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, July 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 explaining that while he’s offering this teaching specifically to the Sangha at this time—to encourage them to keep their vows as those intent on the virtue that is nirvana—anyone is welcome to listen and benefit from the advice.

The total cessation of obscurations, is nirvana, ultimate happiness. It is forever, not like you are going on vacation, which is only temporary and is actually suffering, and not pleasure as your hallucinated mind believes. Because nirvana is everlasting happiness, it is worthwhile to bear hardships in order to practice Dharma. As an example, Rinpoche shares that Milarepa bore hardships such as living on nettles for many years and building a nine-story building three times alone, and then achieved enlightenment in a brief lifetime of degenerate times. This was due to all the hardships Milarepa experienced, not in spite of them. As another example, Rinpoche explains that the bodhisattva Always Crying One sacrificed himself to follow his guru and collected two great eons of merit in seven years’ time.

Right now you see samsara as a beautiful park in the same way that dogs see kaka as nectar. If you analyze it, you can see clearly that there is no pleasure existing from its own side. You label pleasure, but the mind is merely imputing this. The label came from the negative imprint left on the continuation of your consciousness since beginningless rebirths. Your entire life needs to be analyzed, then you recognize the truth. You discriminate “good” and “bad,” then attachment and anger arise. From there you create all the negative karma. This is why it is so important to learn Dharma! Everything is embodied in the lamrim, the three principal aspects of the path.

Samsaric pleasures cheat us, like honey on a knife. It is not only a hallucination, but it is what creates negative karma—not only suffering in this life but causes the lower realms. Being pierced by three hundred spears is nothing compared to a small suffering in hell. If you understood the suffering of hell, you would faint.

Grasping at samsaric pleasures is like a fish seeing a worm and getting caught on the hook. The fish sees the worm and thinks, “Oh! There’s something to eat!” They see pleasure and immediately jump toward it but then become hooked there and death follows. There are many examples like this—there is so much clinging to pleasure only to be cheated and destroyed by it.

Even beauty can’t be found when you analyze it. Someone you think of as so beautiful, visualize them without their skin. Then see them as a pile of skin, flesh, and bones—where is the beauty? Then using the example of blood: when the body is cut, one bleeds. This is frightening to see. Even the skin itself, if you looked at it with a magnifying glass, you can see all of the bumps. There’s no beauty to be attached to if you examine the body; it exists because you labeled it as beautiful, but this came from your mind. Your negative imprints project good and bad, you differentiate between beautiful and ugly, causing attachment and anger to arise. Without analyzing it looks like beauty comes from the outside, but that’s a total hallucination. This is why practicing mindfulness every day is necessary. It solves the wrong concept.

You can counteract attachment to someone’s body by thinking about what’s inside it—muscles, nerves, blood, flesh, skeleton. You can also counteract attachment to someone’s body by thinking it has a dirty smell when it isn’t washed and perfumed, or when it is dead.

Even insects project beauty onto other insects of the opposite sex and wish to have sex with them. The same is true for human beings; negative imprints cause us to see particular body parts as beautiful. From the side of the body, there is no beauty at all. It is difficult to take the lay vow to abstain from sexual misconduct because attachment overcomes the mind and defeats you. Then, celibacy for a monk or nun is very difficult. In reality, there is not one sentient being with whom you haven’t had a relationship. When you have so much attachment toward someone arise, you think this is the first time you are seeing them. But this person has been your wife and husband countless times; you have been their wife and husband countless times. There is not even one ant or insect you haven’t had a relationship with.

Until you have a stable mind, you should stay in a monastery, nunnery, cave, or hermitage. If your mind is weak, you should stay away from objects of desire. In this way, you are able to practice morality and keep your ordination.  

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 “Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder“:
https://youtu.be/S6hr1et8Qjg

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• Find Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, and Russian
• Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings

Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 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/

Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”

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 online from Kopan Monastery, Nepal, July 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 that the perfect human rebirth doesn’t last long. This body is like a machine—breathing in and out—and can stop at any time. Why does the body keep working? Karma. How long the breath lasts is also due to karma. It can stop at any time, we have to remember this. Some students have even died while using the bathroom. It can happen at any time, and when you don’t expect it, so while you are still breathing, make your life most beneficial for others by doing everything with bodhichitta.

The two basic practices in your life should be the two bodhichittas: absolute bodhichitta and conventional bodhichitta. Bodhichitta is the two wishes; one is the wish to benefit sentient beings, and one is the wish to achieve enlightenment. The real purpose of life is to benefit numberless sentient beings, to free them from suffering and bring them to enlightenment by yourself. Therefore, you need to achieve enlightenment. This is the motivation for listening to the teachings.

It is so important to know that samsaric pleasures are actually the suffering of change. Most students meditate on the suffering of pain, but they don’t meditate on how samsaric pleasures are in the nature of suffering, or on pervasive compounding suffering. This third type of suffering, the pervasive compounding suffering, is the most important to meditate on; it is the suffering of samsara. When you are free of this type of suffering, you become free from the other two sufferings, the suffering of pain and the suffering of change.

As Rinpoche mentioned yesterday, quoting from Lama Chopa verses 87cd-88ab, you have to renounce the thought of seeing samsara as a beautiful park:

Please bless me to generate a strong wish to be liberated
From the endless and terrifying great ocean of samsara.

Having renounced the thought seeing samsara,
Which is difficult to bear like being in prison, as a beautiful park,

You have to abandon this thought of the hallucinated mind.

If there were no negative imprints left on the mental continuum by ignorance, there would be no projection of a real I. Rinpoche explains how the thought focuses on the aggregates—form, feeling, cognition, compositional factors, and consciousness—and that is the phenomenon or base that is merely labeled “I.” When that happens, it is extremely fine, so subtle, Rinpoche emphasizes. It is not that the I doesn’t exist. The I exists, but it is like it doesn’t exist. The negative imprints left by ignorance on the continuation of our consciousness decorate the I that just now was merely imputed, projecting true existence, existing from its own side. So we think, “This is real. This is true!” Believing, holding onto that—that is ignorance. As you are creating ignorance, you are creating the root of samsara, the root of all suffering. This is from ignorance holding the I as truly existent.

Your hallucinated mind also makes up pleasure. If you check up on samsaric pleasure, you can see it is the basis of all suffering. Your mind labels it as pleasure. In reality, it is a hallucination, made up by the mind according to the different things an individual wants. Traveling, drugs, sex, going into the mountains—these various things are labeled pleasure according to the individual, but in reality there is nothing there at all. You have to recognize the hallucination as a hallucination. If you don’t look at the dream as a dream, you believe it is real. Then all of the problems of anger, ignorance, and attachment, all the delusions, arise.

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 “Renounce the Thought Seeing Samsara as a Beautiful Park”:
https://youtu.be/ssivsxwZfYQ

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• Links to Lama Chopa practices and commentary
• For more on bodhichitta and understanding ignorance, see Cultivating Mindfulness of Bodhichitta in Daily Activities and Recognizing the False I by Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
• Find Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, and Russian
• Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings

Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 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/

Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”

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 consecrating the new stupa in Thame, Solu Khumbu, Nepal, from afar, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, June 2021. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

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 motivation he established last session, particularly for the Sangha. He emphasized requesting the guru for blessings to be able to generate a strong wish to be liberated from samsara, quoting verse 87 of Lama Chopa. Rinpoche adds that for this teaching’s motivation, we can look to verse 88 from Lama Chopa:

Having renounced the thought seeing samsara,
Which is difficult to bear like being in prison, as a beautiful park,
Please bless me to hold the three higher trainings, the treasure of the exalted beings’ wealth,
And then to uphold the victory banner of liberation.

In this way, the motivation is to renounce the thought of seeing samsara as a beautiful park. You don’t want to think like this even for a second.

People in the East look at life in the West as pleasurable, Rinpoche explains, but soon find out that the lifestyle is very expensive! Many Tibetans work hard all year to save money in order to make offerings to the monasteries. This is their way of collecting merit by doing something good each year. This is very different than the customs in the West, where people work hard just to support an expensive lifestyle. Rinpoche cautions that if your mind is not holy Dharma, your actions become nonvirtue. So even if you give all of your money to the monastery, your motivation is what determines whether this is worldly dharma, resulting in future suffering, or holy Dharma, which is the cause of happiness.

Rinpoche then discussed going on pilgrimage to Gyalwa Dromtonpa’s monastery in Tibet. Gyalwa Dromtonpa was Lama Atisha’s translator in Tibet. Lama Atisha asked Dromtonpa to establish a monastery [known as Reting Monastery]. Lama Tsongkhapa wrote Lamrim Chenmo in a hermitage above the monastery. It is a great monastery from where many Kadampa geshes came. This monastery also holds a very precious statue of Guhyasamaja Manjushri Vajra. This was Lama Atisha’s devotion holy object, which he gave Dromtonpa. If you drink the water there, you never get reborn in the lower realms. So everyone on the pilgrimage drank the water. Gold was offered to the statue, as well as a pearl mala and a bath (tru söl).

Gyalwa Dromtonpa said that practicing holy Dharma means you renounce this life. Renouncing this life means giving up attachment clinging to this life. All the sufferings, all the problems, all nonvirtue—all of this comes from the root, which is the eight worldly concerns, clinging to the pleasures of this life. So renouncing means giving this up. There is more and more dissatisfaction the more wealth you have. It is the worst suffering. Even though you have everything materially, the mind suffers unbelievably. Rich people look at poor people and think they are happier than them, but having that much wealth causes so many mental problems and so much suffering. Being in samsara is like being in the center of a fire, like sitting on top of a needle, like being in prison.

The essential path to become free from samsara is the practice of the three higher trainings: morality, concentration, and wisdom.

Rinpoche then discusses why it is so important to be Sangha. Lama Tsongkhapa explained in Lamrim Chenmo that being ordained makes it easy to practice the higher training of morality—which is the base of all realizations. Generally, Sangha have more time to practice Dharma than lay people. This is because many lay people get caught in family life and there is no time to practice and actualizing the path becomes very difficult. Due to having more freedom to practice, Sangha can develop renunciation and then compassion. This is why it is very important to have the motivation to request the guru for blessings to be able to uphold the three higher trainings and receive liberation.

Your view depends on how pure or impure your mind is. What you see on the outside is all according to your mind. The more impure your mind is, the more impure things appear outside. If your mind is more pure, you will see things outside as pure also. To a Buddha, whatever appears is only a pure appearance—negative imprints are totally removed, and there is no dualistic view.

Attachment and anger arise only after you discriminate “good” or “bad.” Lama Tsongkhapa mentioned this in Lamrim Chenmo:

Ignorance, which is in the nature of exaggeration, exaggerates the differentiation into
good and bad. Then attachment and anger arise. Therefore, the way of holding [objects] by these [wrong concepts] can also be gotten rid of by logic.

Real pleasure is a hallucination. You must recognize the nature of suffering in samsara. The renunciation of samsara is so important because you are constantly suffering until you are free from it. Rinpoche quotes a verse from Lama Tsongkhapa’s Foundation of All Good Qualities to support his point:

By recognizing the shortcomings of samsaric perfections—
There is no satisfaction in enjoying them, they are the door
to all sufferings,
And they cannot be trusted—
Please bless me to generate a strong wish for the happiness of liberation.

This is an incredible teaching, Rinpoche says. The more you enjoy samsaric pleasures, the more dissatisfied you become. Drinking alcohol, taking drugs, relationships, sex—all of this leads to more dissatisfaction. It all makes your life so difficult and after death then your new home is in the lower realms. This whole mistake is due to ignorance.

By thinking of others’ suffering you can’t relax! You have to practice Dharma; you have to at least recite OM MANI PADME HUM to purify them, free them from samsara, and bring them to enlightenment. Even if you don’t know anything or don’t accept Dharma, if you have a good heart you can help people and protect them from suffering.

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 “Practicing Morality Is Easy When You Know Real Pleasure Is a Hallucination“:
https://youtu.be/eYdfD_HLGKA

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• Links to Lama Chopa practices and commentary
• Foundation of All Good Qualities (eBook & PDF) by Lama Tsongkhapa
• Find more resources for lamrim study, including links to Lamrim Chemno by Lama Tsongkhapa
• Find Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, and Russian
• Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings

Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 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/

Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”

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 giving an online teaching, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, July 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:

Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching discussing two important and powerful holy objects.

First, Rinpoche discussed the three-story Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche) statue being built in Maratika, Nepal, to pacify war, famine, and disease—and, of course, for all the six-realm sentient beings, who have been suffering from beginningless rebirths, to be free from samsara and achieve enlightenment.

Then, Rinpoche discusses the Maitreya Buddha statue being built in Bodhgaya, India, on the land offered to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. This statue is also being built to pacify war, famine, and disease.

Rinpoche explains that one can never know what is going to happen. There are earthquakes, landslides, flooding, and other disasters of the elements. There can also be viruses, famine, war—all kinds of things can happen in samsara. Even in places like Germany, no one expected flash floods there, but they occurred. These dangers actually come from people’s minds, from their karma. So even in an area where a certain disaster wouldn’t be expected, it can happen. Most people don’t have the merit to understand karma, so they believe in the wrong things and attribute causes to the wrong things.

Because Buddhism explains the mind, studying it is important, Rinpoche says, even if you don’t believe it! Even if you are not practicing or believing, you are developing wisdom by studying the Dharma.

Due to practicing Dharma, karma can ripen as suffering in this life rather than in the hell realm. This is due to purification from practicing virtue. Instead of having to experience the heaviest suffering for eons, the karma ripens as some catastrophe in this life, and then there will be happiness in the future.

Rinpoche illustrates this point, quoting Kadampa Geshe Kharag Gomchung from Mind Training: The Seventy-Two Exhortations:

Even this small present suffering
Finishes past heavy negative karma,
And then in the future there will be happiness.
Therefore, feel happy with your suffering.

Rinpoche then discusses verses 85–87 from Lama Chopa:

Being afraid of the blazing suffering of the lower realms,
Please bless me to voluntarily persevere in
Going for refuge from my heart to the Three Rare Sublime Ones,
Abandoning negative karma, and practicing all the collections of virtue.

Violently tossed by the waves of afflicted actions and disturbing thoughts,
Harmed by the many water lions of the three types of suffering,
Please bless me to generate a strong wish to be liberated
From the endless and terrifying great ocean of samsara.

The first verse means we must make this perfect human rebirth truly meaningful. Then, we request the guru for blessings to go for refuge, abandon negative karma, and practice virtue. Rinpoche uses Milarepa as an example of how to practice this. Milarepa took on hardships purposefully. Many thought he was very poor and had nothing—but he achieved the whole path to enlightenment. Many people might think, “I have a job, I have money, I have an education.” They achieved whatever they needed to achieve, but they are still suffering in samsara because they don’t know Dharma.

Rinpoche emphasizes that it is so important to request the guru for blessings to generate a strong wish to be liberated from the great ocean of samsara. We should request this single-pointedly, making the strongest request.

This is the motivation we should have for listening to the teachings.

Rinpoche reminds us that our personal suffering in samsara is nothing compared to that of numberless sentient beings, who have suffered since beginningless rebirths. Practicing the higher training of morality is the foundation for helping all the numberless sentient beings. We are solely responsible for freeing them from oceans of samsaric suffering and bringing them to full enlightenment.

In order to do this, we need to achieve enlightenment so that we can do perfect work for others. To do this we need to be free from samsara. And to do that we must actualize the three higher trainings of morality, concentration, and wisdom. Rinpoche explains that the higher training of morality is the very foundation, and so it is most important to practice morality. “So therefore, now SANGHA—for yourself to end samsara as quickly as possible and achieve enlightenment to help numberless sentient beings, so then it is better to be a monk or nun,” Rinpoche concludes.

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 “The Higher Training of Morality Is the Foundation for Helping Sentient Beings”:
https://youtu.be/beY7voGsWXE

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• Links to Lama Chopa practices and commentary
• Find Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, and Russian
• Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings

Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 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/

You can read a summary of Rinpoche’s thought transformation teachings given in 2020 in the Mandala 2021 article “The Time to Practice Is Now: Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Thought Transformation Teachings During the Time of COVID-19.”

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 on His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s birthday, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, July 2021. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

In the following video excerpt Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains the advantages of cherishing others over cherishing oneself. Here’s a summary:

Rinpoche begins by sharing a story he heard from Gelek Rinpoche during a teaching many years ago in Delhi. The story was about how poor workers building roads out in the hot sun would see wealthy people in their nice houses and be attracted to their lives. But the rich people, thinking of their problems, would look at the workers and think, “I wish I could be like those people working on the road; they don’t have all these problems.” Rinpoche continues, describing how when we see a bird or a monkey or a mouse, we get attracted to them because we think that we have so many problems and that the animals have none. But we don’t know the suffering of the animals.

Rinpoche then explains that whatever we do, even studying the Dharma, reciting prayers, meditating, eating, or sleeping, if we do these things with the self-cherishing thought, they become obstacles to achieve enlightenment.

“Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, like the numberless buddhas, was in the beginning like us. But they all gave up the self-cherishing thought, the greatest obstacle to achieving enlightenment, the root of suffering, obstacles, all the obstacles to practicing Dharma, even the black magic, everything. So they changed their minds; they gave up the self-cherishing thought. Their minds changed into bodhichitta, cherishing the numberless sentient beings. For us, we cherish I, they cherish the numberless sentient beings and most happily let go of I. They let go of cherishing I, most happily, kind of with force,” Rinpoche says.

If you realize the benefits of cherishing others over yourself and you meditate and analyzed these two things you come to see that the unbelievable benefits of cherishing others are limitless like the sky. Rinpoche explains that the self-cherishing mind doesn’t allow you to achieve enlightenment, Buddhahood for sentient beings. It keeps you in the suffering of samsara.

So while we have received this perfect human rebirth, which is quickly coming to an end, we should put our efforts toward transforming our minds in order to actualize bodhichitta. Rinpoche explains that by thinking of the benefits of cherishing others and the shortcomings of the self-cherishing thought, and of the kindness of other sentient beings, and on the basis of loving kindness and great compassion, we should be moving our minds as much as we can to bodhichitta. So that with every activity we are remembering bodhichitta, dedicating for sentient beings. “So each time when you dedicate the activity for sentient beings, you collect merits, unbelievable [the number of merits, like] the number of [specks of] dust of this earth, the limitless sky, or more than that, depending on the attitude,” Rinpoche explains.

Watch the video “Cherishing Others Versus Cherishing Oneself”:
https://youtu.be/sTfUu0dZzXo

The above video is extracted from the 2018 retreat at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion in Bendigo, Australia. 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 the ongoing video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation, where you can also find links to transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more. You can read a summary of Rinpoche’s thought transformation teachings given in 2020 in the Mandala 2021 article “The Time to Practice Is Now: Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Thought Transformation Teachings During the Time of COVID-19.”

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 making offerings at Boudha Stupa after lockdowns were lifted, Nepal, June 2021. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

In the following short excerpt from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s video teachings on thought transformation, Rinpoche explains that attachment to others’ bodies comes from the beginningless habituation of thinking they are nice. This is not only true of human beings, but even insects have this attraction to the opposite sex.

Also, Rinpoche explains that our attachment changes. For example, our attraction to one person can disappear when we see someone who we think is even more attractive. This proves that attachment does not come from the side of the object, the other person’s body; it comes from our own mind.

“That means you have freedom in your hands. Hell and enlightenment, liberation from samsaric suffering, and nirvana—yes, even everyday problems and happiness—it is in your hands. It depends on how you think,” Rinpoche explains.

“If you keep your mind in Dharma, especially in bodhichitta, lojong, emptiness, it is unbelievable—only happiness! With bodhichitta, everything becomes a cause of enlightenment. With emptiness, everything becomes a remedy to samsara, everything that you do.”

Rinpoche emphasizes that we must understand that thinking that something is beautiful or ugly does not come from the object’s side. Thinking that is an exaggeration that comes from your own mind. Therefore, since our own mind produces attachment, our own mind also can become free from attachment.

Watch the video “Beauty Comes from Your Mind“:
https://youtu.be/-IzXuyTkW00

Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.

The above video is extracted from the teaching “Attachment to Pleasure Cheats You” (Video 50, July 12, 2020).

Read a summary of Rinpoche’s thought transformation teachings given in 2020 in the Mandala 2021 article “The Time to Practice Is Now: Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Thought Transformation Teachings During the Time of COVID-19.” Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation, where you can also find links to transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more. Find more short video clips from Rinpoche’s teaching, or “Essential Extracts.”

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.

Tsa-tsas at Kachoe Dechen Ling, Aptos, California, US. Photo by Chris Majors.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche dictated this advice on making tsa-tsas and requested that it be made available to all who do the practice of tsa-tsas.

If you do nine tsa-tsas according to the tradition of Lama Atisha, prepare everything according to what is normally instructed for making tsa-tsas.

When you make the first tsa-tsa think and dedicate: I will make this tsa-tsa to complete all the wishes of the holy mind that the three times (past, present, and future) virtuous friend has.

Second tsa-tsa: Dedicate, thinking to purify: May the tsa-tsa purify completely, purify the obscurations, and accumulate the merits of all the fathers and mothers of the past, present, and future.

Third tsa-tsa: Dedicate to purify the obscurations and the negative karma of having collected the five heavy negative karmas without interruption of myself and all sentient beings.

Fourth tsa-tsa: Dedicate for myself and every sentient being to not be reborn in the eight states, which have no freedom to practice Dharma.

Fifth tsa-tsa: Dedicate, particularly, for myself and every sentient being to not be reborn in the three lower realms.

Sixth tsa-tsa: Dedicate to heal all the diseases of all the sick people, myself, and every sentient being.

Seventh tsa-tsa: Dedicate that all devas who are dying not be reborn in a suffering world.

Eighth tsa-tsa: Dedicate for intermediate state beings (to not have fear, to not suffer, and to be born in a pure land where they can become enlightened or attain a perfect human body and meet Dharma in order to achieve enlightenment).

Ninth tsa-tsa: Dedicate for all the sentient beings (to purify all the obscurations and achieve enlightenment).

Tsa-tsas at Kachoe Dechen Ling, Aptos, California, US. Photo by Chris Majors.

Lama Atisha gave this advice on how to dedicate tsa-tsas to Zue Dorje Gyaltsen (zus.rdo.rje rgyal.mtshan). Then Dorje Gyaltsen gave this practice to Geshe Drogpo Kharpa (dge.bshes grog.po mkhar.pa). Then he gave to Geshe Draknakpo (dge.bshe brag.nag.pa), who gave to Gomrimpa (sgom.rim.pa), then he gave to Droe (grod) then he gave to Zhang (zhang) and then he gave to Chim (chim).

This is Lama Atisha’s tradition of practice for making tsa-tsas, his holy heart practice. This is how he practiced. It is very inspiring. It gives incredible inspiration; then one wants to make tsa-tsas.

This is the idea of totally mad Zopa. In the West it is easier [to do this practice] as tsa-tsas are not made from earth dust. It’s plaster. So you can make many tsa-tsas at one time. You can dedicate each tsa-tsa, according to what Lama Atisha explained. You can do like that or if you want to do more then you can dedicate for each two tsa-tsas, each three tsa-tsas or five tsa-tsas, like that. You can do like that. And if you don’t have time at all, if you are going to die right now, then make one tsa-tsa before the breath stops. Make one tsa-tsa but dedicate that for all the nine purposes, the nine reasons.

Okay. [You are] most welcome to enlightenment and to liberate sentient beings from the oceans of samsara as quickly as possible and to bring them to enlightenment as quickly as possible.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Scribed by Ven. Tenzin Namdrol, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, January 2021.

For more on tsa-tsas, please see the tsa-tsa resource page:
https://fpmt.org/education/practice/holy-objects/tsa-tsas-a-resource-guide/

Watch Rinpoche’s recent teachings and find links to transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more on the page Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19.

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.