Advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche

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.

Sunset on Kopan Hill while Lama Zopa Rinpoche is offering puja, May 2021. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Recently Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered some advice for those experiencing the intense heatwave in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. In the midst of record-high temperatures, Rinpoche advised on how to look at our present difficulties as an opportunity to practice by utilizing our suffering as a pathway to the greatest happiness by cultivating bodhicitta, and especially, by taking all the suffering of every sentient being upon ourselves so that they may receive enlightenment. Additionally, Rinpoche recommends making strong, heartfelt prayers to Chenrezig for the blessing of rain. We hope that you will find this advice from Rinpoche useful:

First, think about karma, cause and effect. In Tibetan, ledre. Secondly, think about how Lama Atisha had 157 gurus and two root gurus. One was Lama Serlingpa, from whom he received bodhichitta teachings in Indonesia for twelve years, like however much nectar one pot has being poured completely into another pot. Lama Atisha had to travel twelve months by boat in dangerous conditions to Indonesia to receive these teachings.

The other root guru is Lama Dharmarakshita, who gave the teaching of the Wheel of Sharp Weapons. One stanza from that says that when you have unbearable pain or disease, it’s due to you giving harm to others—the wheel of sharp weapons (bad karma) turned on yourself.

So now, you take all the pain, or the disease, onto yourself. This is what makes your pain or disease most worthwhile, causing all the sentient beings to achieve full enlightenment. So this means you experience every sentient being’s suffering and they become free from the entire suffering of samsara and achieve full enlightenment.

Actually it is sooooo precious. It harms your worst enemy—the self-cherishing thought that has caused you to suffer from beginningless rebirths in samsara, including causing samsara without end. If you don’t practice holy Dharma, particularly bodhichitta now, then you will have to continue suffering

That selfish mind has caused you to harm every sentient being. They suffer in the past and present and also future. You can’t imagine! This time and opportunity is soooo precious to destroy the enemy of bodhichitta. Not only mine, but every sentient being’s. As for others—I don’t know about people—but animals might suffer and die; even in the caves they have no air-conditioning or fans.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching in front of 1,000 Arm Chenrezig, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, August 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Make heartfelt prayers to Chenrezig. In front of the statue, recite the Chenrezig mantra, some malas.

Make very strong prayers. You should know that Chenrezig is there, he sees and understands everything. Then request what is the most important need for sentient beings, which is black clouds and so much rain for a long time. Then that causes landslides and water floods—I’m joking! Visualize strong rain in the whole area where there is heat.

From the second buddha, Nagarjuna, who mentioned in A Letter to a Friend [as a comparison to the suffering in hell], “Here, having put 360 short spears heavily into the body,” there’s no need to question about that. For us, even a tiny thorn the size of a hair, if it goes in the flesh it’s unbearable without taking it out. So imagine the example of the 360 short spears—most unbelievable, unbelievable suffering.

Therefore, there’s no comparison [including having 360 short spears in the flesh] to the unbearable, unbearable, extremely unbearable suffering of even the slightest hell. And then there’s having to experience it for one hundred eons or ten million eons.

So until the negative karma finishes, one never separates from suffering. This is something to think about when we think about lower realm sufferings every day. This is the most unbearable, and it’s the very smallest hell suffering.

As I often say, the heaviest suffering of human beings is actually great peace and pleasure when compared to the hell sufferings. So you can understand from this quotation. Whether you believe that hell exists or not is just the limitation of merit, of intelligence. Those who have a lot merit, they can remember past and future lives. They have merit, like those bodhisattvas who achieve the bhumis. The bodhisattvas who achieve the first bhumi can see one hundred past and future lives. And on the second bhumi they can see one thousand past and future lives. Then more and more … it goes on and on. The higher and higher they go, the fewer and fewer obscurations.

It’s like the more you clean it, the more you see the beauty—the color and design comes out. The more you clean the dirt it becomes clearer, so the quality of the mind comes out. That’s a very good outside example.

For example, a cup is dirty and smelly with kaka, but because the cup is not kaka you can clean it with soap and water. It’s the same with cloth that is very black and dirty, you can wash it with soap and different things, and then it becomes fresh like a new one, especially if you iron it. So that’s a very good outside example. Because the cloth isn’t oneness with the dirt, it’s just temporarily obscured. The mind is also not oneness with the obscurations, not oneness with attachment, anger, and ignorance—ignorance holding I and phenomena as truly existent. While it exists in mere name, not even an atom is existing from its own side.

So it’s an example, and through meditation, if you really meditate, if you get experiences, you see more and more clearly past and future lives, karma, with higher and higher realizations. As the mind gets less and less obscured and purified, then you can see things deeper and deeper, what ordinary beings cannot see. It doesn’t mean just because you can’t see it now [it doesn’t exist]. When the mind has fewer obscurations through purification, you can see for yourself, you can prove to yourself.

Now here as I mentioned, this shows very clearly the example of hell sufferings. It’s not hell but it’s giving an example. It’s a human being suffering, but it’s like hell, it gives you an idea—then, it becomes unbelievably hot, beyond human suffering. The heat is there, it’s the same as in Bodhgaya where it’s hot every single year. It’s not been in America, but now it happens. In India, in Bodhgaya, it happens every year. It’s just that we don’t know about India. So you see, this didn’t come from the outside, it came from the mind.

Nearby, there’s a part of America—the name I don’t know—it’s in the corner of America, there is so much water, so much flooding, so much of that has happened. Then in Washington it’s so hot. Some areas are very hot while close by there is flooding. It looks like it comes from outside, but it comes from the inside—the mind—the result of past negative karma.

The foundation of Buddhism is that happiness and suffering come from the mind, from your mind. So your mind is the creator. It’s explained in Abidharmakosha, this is one important subject to study. The various worlds came from the mind, born from the mind. It’s either so hot, or there are landslides or earthquakes. These outside conditions are caused by non-human beings. But that’s not the main cause. The main cause is karma. Karma is the mind; it is not the body. It comes with the mind, not with the body. There is the primary mind and the fifty one mental factors. There are five omnipresent mental factors, in Tibetan, kundro nga, always existing—“omnipresent,” as it’s translated in English is okay but it’s not very exact. Karma is the mental factor intention, which is one of those five.

Yes, of course it can be purified before experiencing the result. Yes, it depends on how perfectly it’s purified, whether you experience some result or not. If purification is perfectly well done, then one never experiences the result of negative karma, suffering is not experienced in this life. Then the next one is that you experience past heavy karma in this life, but not as heavy as experiencing it in the lower realms for many eons. Unbelievable heaviness, but it manifests as some cancer or virus, some chaos to finish. So there will be happiness in the future. These are the benefits of purification.

Kadampa Geshe Kharagpa said, “This small present suffering finishes some past negative karma, then there will be happiness in the future. So therefore, be happy by having this suffering.” I think it means to rejoice and be happy by thinking of the benefits. So not just in one life, but from life to life, you’ll have more and more happiness. Also, you go to enlightenment and are free from samsara. It can happen more and more like that.

So it’s very good to rejoice. You’re experiencing the hottest heat now, but in Bodhgaya, where we have a center, the people who live there go through this every year, so hot. That’s what Roger reminded me. In America it’s a big surprise because it didn’t happen like that before. So you have to know and you have to rejoice. Be happy because your past negative karma is getting purified, purified of the lower realm sufferings, unbelievable sufferings. It finishes like that, so rejoice, be happy.

And not only that, be happy to receive all the numberless sentient beings’ sufferings—the hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, suras, and asuras—to take their suffering on yourself. Experience that suffering and the causes—karma and delusion—and let them be enlightened, the total cessation of obscurations and the completion of realizations.

Experience it for sentient beings rather than thinking, I’m suffering, I’m suffering. Unless of course, you want to fly to Mount Everest. So you see, in the northern hemisphere, in Iceland and in many places, there are huge ice mountains melting down. You hear about this all the time. Why is this happening? It came from the mind, basically. The great enlightened being, Padampa Sangye, who existed during Milarepa’s time said, “It looks like happiness and suffering come from the outside, but they come basically and originally from one’s mind.”

So you can ask, the virus came from China, but why does it have to be experienced in America? Some people have the virus while some people don’t have it—why? Also in the family, the father can die from the virus but not the children and not the mother—why? So you can ask like that.

You want to see yourself as an enlightened being and others as ordinary beings—this is totally ignorant because you don’t understand it came from the mind. Using a very simple example, when you recognize that you’re not well, that you’re sick, you go to the doctor. Because you don’t know how the sickness evolved, you don’t know the details, what happens with the sickness—you have no idea, so you go to see the doctor who knows better than you, who has studied more and who knows more than you. But you say this doctor is totally ignorant because he doesn’t know more than me, he hasn’t stopped suffering and ignorance up to thinking, “I’m an enlightened being,” and you disregard his advice.

So whatever is happening—the extreme weather, whatever it is that totally changes and then there’s suffering, hot, cold, big problems—you experience it for others. If you have intelligence, if you have a lot of merit, then you experience it for sentient beings. In that way you actualize the path to enlightenment. Then not only do you get enlightened but you enlighten other sentient beings. It’s so good, unbelievable. And if you die with that, as His Holiness always says, the best way to die is with bodhichitta.

Kyabje Khunu Lama Rinpoche, the great bodhisattva from whom I received teachings, said in the Praise to Bodhicitta that even if you’re sick, be sick with bodhicitta; even if you die, die with bodhicitta. Whatever happens, that is best. The Kadampa Geshe Chekawa said that he prayed to be born in the hells for sentient beings, but at death time he had visions of the pure land where he’d be reborn. He said, “I didn’t achieve my wish, which was to be born in the hells for sentient beings.” He treated all sentient beings like how you would treat your mother or the most kind person. Their suffering being the most unbearable, he felt it for all sentient beings—for every ant, every mosquito, even the tiniest one, everyone, no matter how big they were—he felt it for everyone.

This is the best way to die and to experience problems. It’s the best way to transform it all into the path for all sentient beings. What else is more happiness than this and more important than this, to be able to benefit numberless sentient beings? It’s ridiculous to take drugs or whatever. It’s like a person who has delusions from spirits, that person is running on the cliffs and in his vision, his view, there’s a big road that goes down to the beach. This is explained by not just one person, but quoted by those who didn’t die. They explained what they have seen, where there’s actually no road, they see a road.

Thank you very, very much. I bring up some words for this situation where everybody is jumping [with anxiety]. There are many stories with the heat, but one can’t jump that much. So please think about what I’ve said. The best is tonglen [taking and giving] and lojong [thought transformation]—the most beneficial. Whatever it is, even death, sickness, or relationship problems, experience it for all sentient beings. That’s the happiest and the hippiest person. 

Thank you very much. Goodbye.

Dictated to Ven. Tenzin Namdrol by Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery, Nepal; transcribed and lightly edited by Wongmo, Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, June 30, 2021. Further edited by FPMT International Office, July 2, 2021.

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.

Learn more about the recent video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation, where you can also find links to videos, transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche offering incense puja on Kopan Hill to mitigate the pandemic in Nepal, India, and the world; for many weeks Rinpoche offered sur, bath offering, incense puja, and tea offering for many hours each night; Kopan Monastery, Nepal, May 2021. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

In the following short excerpt, Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains that as Buddhists we train to be free from the pervasive compounding suffering and that the main goal of our human life is to bring all sentient beings of the six realms into peerless happiness, total cessation of obscurations and completion of realizations, into enlightenment. Here’s a summary of the video:

We need to be free from pervasive compounding suffering, Rinpoche explains. That is the main thing we should free ourselves from. By doing this, we are forever free from the suffering of pain and suffering of change, and then we have ultimate happiness, liberation.

But even being free from samsara, achieving nirvana, is not sufficient. “The blissful state of peace for oneself is not enough,” Rinpoche says.

Why? Because the purpose of our human life is to be beneficial for all sentient beings and to cause the the numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless sura beings, and numberless asura beings to be free from samsara forever. Not only that, the purpose of this life is also to bring everyone—each and every one in six realms—to peerless happiness, total cessation of obscurations and completion of realizations, sanggye.

“You need to do that!” Rinpoche says. That is the main purpose. That is why we are born a human being this time, to accomplish this aim. “That should be the main aim of our breathing, our eating food, going to sleep, everything. For that you need to achieve the state of omniscience.”

Watch the video “The Purpose of Our Human Life Is to Benefit All Sentient Beings”:
https://youtu.be/xAV-gvchhjw

The above video was extracted from the beginning of the 100 Million Mani Mantra Retreat at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, Pomaia, Italy, recorded on October 6, 2017.

Learn more about the recent video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation, where you can also find links to videos, 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 doing puja to mitigate the pandemic in Nepal, India, and the rest of the world at sunset on Kopan Hill, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, May 2021. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

In the following short video clip, Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains that the greatest excitement in our life is to benefit all sentient beings. Listening to teachings, doing prayers and meditations, taking precepts, and living our life—all that—we dedicate to their well being. Here’s a summary of the video clip:

Rinpoche explains that we are listening to the teachings for numberless animals, in order to free them from samsara and lead them to enlightenment. “Can you imagine? Do you understand?” Rinpoche asks. “If you are not excited for this, then what else is exciting?”

“Other excitement is totally crazy,” Rinpoche explains. “It is over hallucination. There is hallucination and over hallucination. So here, can you imagine?”

The reason we are doing meditation is to benefit all sentient beings, not leaving out one single tiny fly, not one single ant. There are numberless universes. But not one single ant is left out, because of all the kind mother sentient beings, Rinpoche explains. If you think of the details it’s unbelievable!

So bodhichitta—practicing bodhichitta and benefiting sentient beings—is so great. “What other excitement do you want? Something else is more exciting that this?” Rinpoche asks. Nothing is more exciting and to think this is very strange, Rinpoche explains. It is like your mind is not right. “I’m talking including myself, not only you,” Rinpoche says.

Our reciting should be done with the thought that we are not leaving even the tiniest sentient being behind. We are reciting for everyone. “We get up for them in the morning, wash, and do the motivation, especially the Mahayana motivation, bodhichitta, wow!” Rinpoche says. We need to be alive to practice Dharma, to be of benefit, so we have to eat. So we eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner for all sentient beings. We take precepts for them. We do meditation for them. “Every prayer is for them,” Rinpoche says. “Can you imagine?”

Watch the video “Nothing More Exciting than That”:
https://youtu.be/5zlddu2tgOo

The above video is extracted from the Light of the Path 2017 teachings, recorded on August 27, 2017, in Black Mountain, North Carolina, US.

Since early May 2021, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has been offering video teachings in Tibetan from Kopan Monastery in Nepal.

Learn more about the recent video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation, where you can also find links to videos, 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 blessing six goats that were purchased and saved from the butcher. The goats were liberated on behalf of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, all the Kopan monks and nuns, all the Nepali and Indian people, and all beings to be free from the Coronavirus, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, May 2021. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Since early May 2021, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has been offering video teachings in Tibetan from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. We anticipate Rinpoche will return to recording new video teachings in English in the near future.

In this short video extract from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s video series Teachings on Thought Transformation, Rinpoche explains why it is so important to practice Dharma right now.

Rinpoche begins the discussion with the following quote:

Having received this perfect human rebirth, you can reach the end of the oceans of rebirth
And plant the seeds of virtue of supreme enlightenment.
Who would not want the results of a human body,
Which has even greater qualities than a wish-granting jewel?

Rinpoche reminds us that we have had numberless rebirths and suffered in samsara since beginningless time. But because we have received a perfect human rebirth in this life, we can put an end to rebirths in samsara and plant the seeds of enlightenment.

Because of what we can accomplish with this human rebirth, it is much more precious than the whole sky filled with numberless wish-granting jewels. With this human rebirth we can achieve the total cessation of obscurations and the completion of all realizations; we can’t achieve that from a wish-granting jewel alone.

Rinpoche explains that for numberless eons we have not had a perfect human rebirth, but in this life we do. It is so precious. So we should use it well. If we waste this opportunity, it would be like putting poison in perfectly good food or like using our human body to create the cause for our future lives to be like firewood in hell.

Therefore, Rinpoche says, Do what is best in this life now!

Watch the nine-minute video “Do Your Best in This Life—Now!”:
https://youtu.be/WOq1–WquBI

Read the video transcript here.

The above video is extracted from Video 38: “Do Your Best in This Life!”

You can subscribe to the FPMT Tibetan video channel to receive updates on new video teachings in Tibetan and you can also find all the recent Tibetan teachings there.

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. 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 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 doing incense puja for everyone affected by COVID-19 around the world, especially for the monks and nuns of Kopan, and those in India and Nepal, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, May 2021. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

In the following short excerpt from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s video teachings on thought transformation, Rinpoche explains the importance of recognizing the reality of death and that it should reminds us to practice Dharma right now!

Rinpoche discusses a quote from Rongphu Sanggye on Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva, citing Sutra of the Sorrowless State:

འདུ་ཤེས་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀྱི་ནང་ནས་ཡང་མི་རྟག་པ་དང་འཆི་བའི་འདུ་ཤེས་མཆོག་ཡིན།

Du she tham chä kyi nang nä yang mi tag pa dang chhi wäi du she chhog yin

Among all the recognitions, the best is the recognition of impermanence-death.

Recognizing impermanence-death reminds you to practice Dharma right now. It is not enough to think you’ll practice Dharma when you become old, because the time of your death is not known, Rinpoche explains. It could happen at any time. Therefore you must practice Dharma right now!

Then, when you die neither the people surrounding you nor your possessions can help you. Even the body that you cherish the most cannot benefit you. You can’t carry even one atom with you after you die. The only thing that can benefit you at the time of death is holy Dharma, nothing else. So, Rinpoche says, the conclusion is to practice only holy Dharma.

However, practicing Dharma doesn’t mean just circumambulating holy objects, reading Dharma texts, or meditating. Rinpoche explains that it means not only our prayers, reflections, and meditation need to be holy Dharma, but also eating, drinking, going to the toilet, walking, sitting, sleeping, working, and so forth all have to become holy Dharma. It means transforming everything we do into holy Dharma. 

Watch the seven-minute video “Recognizing Impermanence-Death Reminds You to Practice Dharma Right Now!“:
https://youtu.be/Og3NCXeJPo8

Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching in this short video.

The above video is extracted from the Thought Transformation Teachings series Video 61: “The One Mistake is Not Remembering Impermanence-Death.”

Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19, where you can also find links to transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more.

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 doing incense puja for everyone affected by COVID-19 around the world, especially for the monks and nuns of Kopan, and those in India and Nepal, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, May 2021. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

In the following excerpt from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent  video teachings on thought transformation, Rinpoche explains that every time we generate bodhichitta, such as before doing a meditation or practice, we are doing it for every sentient being. Not even one of the numberless sentient beings in each realm is left out.

Our bodhichitta includes every single human being we see around us: for example, our parents, our children, our friends, strangers, and even those who are harming us. It also includes every single animal, even every single ant, we see around us.

Therefore, whenever we see a sentient being, we have to recognize that we did our meditation and our practice for them!

Watch the nineteen-minute video “When You Generate Bodhichitta It Is for Everyone You See!“:
https://youtu.be/nl-9ECJDKxE

Here is the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching in this video:

By Understanding Your Own Samsaric Sufferings, You Generate Compassion and Bodhichitta

Then, when you think of others, then when you think of others, others are not just one—numberless. Like you, they are numberless, others! Waaaaaaaw. Lama khyen, lama khyen, lama khyen. Numberless! Before it was just you, just you, oooooooh. Now next you think—numberless! Ssssh. In hell, they are numberless in each hell realm. There are numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals suffering, numberless! Uuh, hooo, hooo. Numberless human beings suffering, suras, asuras. Numberless, not just one! Bah, bah, bah. Lama khyen, lama khyen. Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk.

Then you feel… If you feel, how much renunciation you feel that you have been in samsara, oh, then you feel so strong compassion for others. You feel it so strong! When you think how others are suffering in samsara, then you feel compassion so strong. You see? Yeah. Yes, compassion, then you want, you want to free them. You want to help them to be free from all the suffering, the numberless beings in each realm. Then you want to take the responsibility to completely do that all by yourself. Aaaah, like that. Aaaah, like that. Then bodhichitta comes! Then the thought of bodhichitta, the thought to achieve enlightenment, comes.

Bodhichitta Is Not Easy but It Is the Most Important Thing in Your Life

You see? It is not easy, but how important it is. It is not easy but how important it is! It is the most important thing in the life! Aaaah. It is the most important thing in your life. It is the most important thing. It is not just words, no—it is the most important thing in your life. What is more important than that, for you to help others? Aaaah! (Rinpoche laughs at his screaming.)

Bodhichitta is not just talking blah, blah, blah, some nice words, blah, blah, blah. No. It is the most important. Bah, bah, bah. It is the most need, the most need, for the happiness of you, for the happiness of all, of every sentient being.

When You Generate Bodhichitta for Sentient Beings, “Sentient Beings” Includes All the Hell Beings

So, when we generate … I will tell it here. When you generate bodhichitta, jang chhub gyi sem, when you generate bodhichitta to free the sentient beings from the oceans of samsara and bring them to enlightenment that includes every … there are numberless hell beings in each realm. In the eight major hot hell sufferings, they are numberless. They are numberless. Then in the six neighboring hells, they are also numberless. Numberless. So, it includes everyone! There is not left out even one.

Can you imagine it, if you think well? Aaaah. It is very easy to say “sentient being,” but if you really think, it is like that—there is not left out even one from the numberless [sentient beings] in each realm. It is amazing, amazing. Ssssh. So, precious. How the thought of bodhichitta is sooooooooooooo precious, precious, precious, precious, precious. Bah, bah, bah. It is the most important, the most important, the most important. Ah-hah. It is like that. You have to know this.

When You Generate Bodhichitta for Sentient Beings, “Sentient Beings” Includes All the Hungry Ghosts

Then, the hungry ghosts, uuuuh. There are those with outer obscurations, food obscurations, and inner obscurations. I mentioned them in the past. They are numberless!

Anything that looks nice, anything green, nice, water, but you, by looking at it, it becomes poison, pollution, poison, and disappears. You see before the food as nice, but because you are looking at it, there is pollution, like poison, and it disappears. Uuuum, like that. Bah, bah, bah.

For thousands of years, even ten thousand, you could not find even a drop of water. Can you imagine it? If you don’t get food for one day, how much you suffer? Even if the suffering is not much but your mind says, “Oh, I didn’t get food. Oh, I didn’t get food,” then you exaggerate. You make your suffering bigger. Your mind makes the problem bigger. So much of our life’s problems can be either no problem or something very small, but then you make it very big. Like a balloon (Rinpoche shows blowing on a balloon), you make it very big. It is like that. Much of it is like that, human being’s problems. They are hardly anything but then you blow them up, oooooo.

What was I saying? To not forget, what was I saying? 

When You Generate Bodhichitta for Sentient Beings, “Sentient Beings” Includes All the Animals and Human Beings

Now the animals, okay, animals. When you generate bodhichitta, to meditate or to do some practice for sentient beings when you generate bodhichitta to achieve enlightenment, [you think,] “Sentient beings, waaaaaw,” sentient beings are like that but you never relate it to the people around you and the animals around you who are suffering. The people in the city that you are living in, you never think that these people have so much problems. You never think. Only in the space “sentient beings.” Those sentient beings where you live in the village are so suffering, unbelievable suffering, bah, bah, bah, but when you see them, you don’t think [about them], but “sentient beings” are somewhere [else], “sentient beings.” (Rinpoche shows looking up into space.)

So, when you say “sentient beings,” it includes every single human being. Nobody is left out. “Nobody” means no white man it left out, no black man is left out. Not only in this world, there are numberless universes. Think there are numberless universes, not only this world. You think there is only this universe, No! Aaaah. The human beings in numberless universes aaaaaaaaaaall of them, not left out even one. There is no one human being left out. No! They are all included in “sentient beings.” Aaaah, like that.

Bodhichitta is Generated for Every Single Animal and Every Single Human Being

In the morning, when you meditate on “sentient beings,” when you do the Mahayana meditation at the beginning there is the motivation of bodhichitta after refuge, it includes all these people that you see. So already you have done a prayer, you have done meditation for them. Yeah! Yeah. So for everybody, yes, one mala of OM MANI PADME HUM for everybody, you did! The people around you, the people who are helping you, the people who are harming you, including even them. You haven’t thought of them, but they are included in that word “sentient beings” there. They are not left out. Even if you don’t like them, normally you never do anything for that person but, of course, “sentient beings” means that they are included, yeah, [when you do] one mala or whatever you are doing. Even if you are eating one spoon of food or drinking, it is done for them. Yeah!

So, in the morning when you do the meditation, for example, it is done! So, that includes, yes, all the people around you. Your parents, your children, yeah, your enemy, your friends, your strangers, your enemy who you don’t like, who you are always angry with, who is always angry with you, who complains about you all the time, it includes all of them. Even though you hate them, you don’t want to help them or anything, you abandon them, but when you generate bodhichitta, they are included in it.

All the people in the city where you are living, all day long you see people, you have generated bodhichitta, you have done the practice for them. You are reciting OM MANI PADME HUM [for them]. Even OM MANI PADME HUM or whatever, by generating bodhichitta it is done, it is done for them, for all the people that you see. When you go outside, you see people in the city or mountains, wherever, you see any sentient beings, any animals, deer, tigers, one attacking another one, eating another one, all of them, you have done it for everyone.

I’m just giving you an example. If you recite OM MANI PADME HUM, one mala, or even half [a mala], or even twenty-one by generating bodhichitta, after you recite refuge and bodhichitta, it is done for everyone, for every single animal. That means every single being in the ocean, large like sharks, whales, and the smallest, I don’t know the name, in the water, in the river, in the ocean. I don’t know the name, the smallest. Everywhere there are insects, in the forest, in the bushes, plants, trees, every tiny, tiny insect that human beings don’t see, under the earth, it includes everyone. Nobody is left out. Not one insect is left out. There are how many thousands of different kinds of ants. Scientists say there are, I don’t remember now, I have written it down but I don’t remember it now, a certain number of thousands of ants. It is including everything! Not one ant is left out. Not one mosquito is left out when you generate jang chhub gyi sem, bodhichitta. Aaaah, like that. You have to know that. It is not just a basic thing, sentient being.

When You See Sentient Beings, You Don’t Think They Are the Sentient Beings for Whom You Are Doing Practices

You don’t think of the people with so much suffering, whatever the different ones, or the animals suffering, being eaten by each other, ssssh, you don’t, when you say “sentient beings,” you never think of them. You never recognize that they are there, that these are the ones for whom you do the practice, never. It is just “sentient beings.” But when you meet them, you never think they are the sentient beings for whom you do the practice. Then you think you can’t help them, you can’t do anything for them. You think like that. You do not even pray for them, even how much you see they are suffering. Even if you can pray, you can help them, but you don’t do it. The thought doesn’t come to help them. Even if you have OM MANI PADME HUM, wow, there is so much what you can do, but you don’t do it. The thought doesn’t come. The thought to help them doesn’t come. How much you see them suffering, like that they have to suffer. That is there life, they have to suffer. Like that.

If Suffering Is “Nature,” Why Do You Want to Be Helped When You Are Suffering?

Some Western people say, “Oh, it is nature. It is nature.” The cat eats the mouse, I mean one animal eats another animal, “This is nature.” It is like you can’t help. There is nothing to do to help; it is nature. That means when suffer, don’t help, no doctors, nobody should help you because “It is nature.” Yeah! Relate it to yourself! Yeah! Yeah! This is nature, your suffering, your depression, so why do you need a psychologist? Why do you need all those things? You don’t need to go to see the doctor, “It is nature.” Yeah! So, it is the same thing. But in your case, you never think that, only other people or only other animals, “It is nature,” a cat eating a mouse, snakes eating a mouse, but, however, yeah, people killing animals, “This is nature.” “This is nature,” so it is like that. Then you let yourself [think], “Oh, I need help,” ooooo, you need help so much, “Please, please help me. Please help me.” But at that time, you don’t think “nature.” Ha-ha. It is funny; when it comes to you, you don’t think, “It is nature.” If at that time you think “nature,” you don’t get angry, but at that time you don’t think that. [You think that] only about others. Ha-ha, so funny.

With Bodhichitta, You Have the Best and Happiest Life

So, generating bodhichitta is great. Every single human being is included. Understand that every single animal, insect, the tiniest, it includes everyone. Nobody is left out. Not one mosquito, not one insect, the tiniest insect, no one is left out. It is so important, so important to generate the thought to achieve enlightenment for them, to benefit them. Wow, wow, wow, wow, how that is the best! How that is the BEST! You are doing every single action of your body, speech, and mind for them. Wow, how that is the best. There is nothing in life [that is more] best, happiest!

Like that, you have to know what is the happiest life! It is not just drinking alcohol, [taking] drugs, ooooooo. Destroying yourself, ooooo, it is not like that. Or climbing Mount Everest, an avalanche can happen, anything, and you get lost. Anyway, so, ha-ha, ha-ha, sssh, bodhichitta, tsk, ssssh, lama khyen, lama khyen, that includes all the sentient beings, suffering and obscured. Bah, bah, bah. It is so good, so good.

With Bodhichitta, Your Life is Highly Meaningful

You have to recognize like this. When you meet people … when you are doing the practice, you are doing a mantra, OM MANI PADME HUM, generating bodhichitta, you are doing it for your family. Yes! And you are doing it for your enemy, the people who harm you. Even for those you don’t know, you are doing it for them but you don’t recognize that. The numberless sentient beings, aaaaaaaall the sentient beings, not left out even one. Can you imagine? You have to recognize that.

When you go to Kathmandu, you did OM MANI PADME HUM, all these [practices you did] with bodhichitta, for these people you did it, you are doing it now. You have to recognize that. So how that is good, then you enjoy! Then you don’t see your life as meaningless. Aaaah. You don’t see your life as totally useless. You know? You don’t think that. You see your life as highly meaningful.

The above video is extracted from Video 62: “Why and How to Take Blessingsfrom a Holy Being.” Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19, where you can also find links to transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more.

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.