Lama Zopa Rinpoche prostrating to the giant Guru Rinpoche thangka during the Guru bumtsok at Khachoe Ghakyil Nunnery, January 2020

Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains that the solution to our problems is to do purification practice every day. These practices include reciting the names of the Thirty-Five Buddhas while prostrating to them, reciting powerful mantras such as Buddha Shakyamuni’s name mantra, doing self-initiation, and reciting OṂ MAṆI PADME HŪṂ, which purifies not only ourselves but even the microscopic creatures living in our bodies.

In the following short excerpt from Rinpoche’s video teachings on thought transformation, Rinpoche emphasizes that if we know these practices, we should do them now because we can die anytime!

Watch the eight-minute video “Purify Now Because You Can Die Anytime!”:
https://youtu.be/KNcFuxuCcpo

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

The Solution to Suffering Is to Do Purification Every Day

So therefore, you can see now that purification is so important. The solution is purification every day. Practice as much as possible purification. We are soooooooo most unbelievably, most unbelievably fortunate.

1. Purify by Reciting the Thirty-Five Buddhas’ Names

There are many different buddhas’ names to purify different negative karmas. There are many different mantras that are so powerful, not only Vajrasattva. But the Thirty-Five Buddhas are so powerful. Bah, bah, bah. By reciting [their names] one time, by practicing well the Thirty-Five Buddhas, it purifies the tsham me nga, the very heavy five heavy negative karmas without break: killed father or mother or an arhat, harmed a buddha, [caused] disunity among the sangha. So, that means there is no question about the ten nonvirtuous actions collected in this life and past lives. Then no question. Even the very heavy negative karmas without break, the five, the five heavy negative karmas, even them, they get completely purified, bah, bah, bah, those collected in this life and past lives. Ssssh. Wow, wow, wow.

That’s why Lama Tsongkhapa did so many hundreds of thousands of prostrations by reciting the Thirty-Five Buddhas. He did so many, so much, not just seven hundred thousand, but so many. That’s why in Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings, the Gelugpa lamas, the lineage lamas, every day they did much prostrations, so many prostrations. I think one lama, I don’t remember the name, Buton Jampa Rinpoche or some lamas do a thousand prostrations a day. Then, many do a hundred prostrations by reciting the Thirty-Five Buddhas. Ssssh.

2. Purify by Reciting the Powerful Mantras

Then there are many mantras, ssssh, very powerful. Even by reciting Buddha’s name mantra:

Buddha Shakyamuni’s Name:

[LA MA] TÖN PA CHOM DÄN DÄ DE ZHIN SHEG PA DRA CHOM PA YANG DAG PAR DZOG PÄI SANG GYÄ PÄL GYÄL WA SHA KYA THUB PA LA CHHAG TSHÄL LO
To [Guru,] Founder, Bhagavan, Tathagata, Arhat, Perfectly Completed Buddha, Glorious Conqueror, Shakyamuni, I prostrate.

Buddha Shakyamuni’s Mantra:

TADYATHA OṂ MUNE MUNE MAHĀ MUNAYE SVĀHĀ

It is said in Kangyur, the Buddha’s teachings, it purifies, by reciting it one time it purifies a billion, 80,000 billion eons of negative karma. Eighty, 80,000 billion eons of negative karma by reciting one time Buddha’s name mantra. You should know that. Everybody should know that. So, take the opportunity, rather than leaving it in the sky! That doesn’t help. You have to practice! Do what you come to know! Practice Dharma! Aaaah. These are incredible methods of sutra and tantra. Bah, bah, bah. Yeah.

3. Purify by Doing Self-Initiation

And those who received a highest tantra initiation, yes, then there is dag jug, self-initiation. You take the initiation yourself. There is a long one, elaborate, middle one, and short one according to your time. It is so good if you break the bodhisattva vow or tantric vow. If you break the pratimoksha, bodhisattva, or tantric vow and general negative karma, it all gets purified. His Holiness does every day Yamantaka self-initiation. His Holiness does it every day. No matter how much busy he is, he does it every morning before he comes out. So, like that, if even His Holiness does it, of course, there is no question that we have to do it.

So, this is the answer of what to do! You have to know this—what to do! Aaaah. Then, yeah, do purification. Aaaah. Purify all the negative karmas you have collected from beginningless rebirths! Beginningless rebirths! Yeah, not just today, not just this life. No. Many people just do this life, maybe. Even that is good but …

4. Purify by Reciting OṂ MAṆI PADME HŪṂ

Then by reciting OṂ MAṆI PADME HŪṂ, wow, wow, wow, that purifies unbelievable, most unbelievable. Purifying yourself, being Chenrezig purifies yourself. Then together are all the simbu nyetri, the twenty-one thousand creatures inside your body living, it is said in a text. So, they all get purified at the same time. So, for example, when you go around a holy object, also they get purified. They get the cause of enlightenment. We carry animals and then we go around for them to achieve enlightenment. The same thing, all the creatures, the twenty-one thousand living inside your body, all those sentient beings get purified and they also create the cause of enlightenment, not only yourself, not only yourself alone. No. You have to know that. Bah, bah, bah.

Do These Purification Practices Now Because You Can Die Anytime!

So, mantras and those things, [reciting] the buddhas’ names, if you heard them, if you know them, don’t leave them just there. No. Practice! Do it now because you can die anytime! Aaaah. You can die anytime. Aaaah. You can die in the middle of the night and the next morning you become a corpse. So, like that, it is never sure, never. Whatever happens to others, it happens to you. So, you can die anytime, so therefore, you must practice now! Just leave it for later, keep it for later, you keep it but don’t practice, that is laziness. Tsk, tsk. Myself too does like that. Many mantras have so much power, so much benefits, but you leave them there. So, you don’t make your life beneficial. Ha-ha. It is like information you found in Skype or something. It is like that, then you leave it there. You didn’t use it. Ha-ha. Okay. All right!

You can find more resources and links on the FPMT Education pages Purification and Mantras.

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/

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Khachoe Ghakyil Nunnery, Nepal, October 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

For many years, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has called on students around the world to recite the Sutra of Golden Light for world peace. “For anyone who desires peace for themselves and for others this is a powerful way to bring peace that doesn’t require you to harm others, doesn’t require you to criticize others, or even to demonstrate against others. Anyone can read this text, Buddhists and even non-Buddhists who desire world peace,” Rinpoche says in “Recite the Golden Light Sutra for World Peace.”

In a letter to a European MP, Rinpoche wrote about the importance of spiritual power to help difficult situations in countries. Rinpoche says that praying, for example, is such a simple thing that can make things better. Rinpoche also recommended reciting the Sutra of Golden Light.

“For instance, the precious teaching of the Buddha called the Golden Light Sutra could be read in Iraq month after month (not just once). That text has the power to bring world peace and also becomes a healing practice for all the sick people in the city where it is read,” Rinpoche wrote.

“By reading this sutra your life only gets better and better, only goes up, never down, right up to enlightenment. Reading it becomes an incredible protection for the country where it is read and gives incredible power to its king or president. It also enables you to defeat a country’s enemy by making them lose power and unable to attack the country and its leader. If you read this text with mindfulness, you will see there is so much there. It can also help against terrorist attacks—this is all through the spiritual power of the Buddha’s holy words. It fulfills the wishes for happiness of everybody who reads it, now and forever. Their problems are taken care of naturally, with the help of so many devas and protectors who are around to help. This is just what I think and I am expressing it to you, that is all.”

You can find links to the sutra text as well as video of Rinpoche offering the sutra as an oral transmission on FPMT.org’s “Sutra of Golden Light” page. This resource page also has more on the benefits of reciting the sutra and links for reporting sutra recitations and stories from students who have seen the benefits of reciting the sutra:
https://fpmt.org/education/prayers-and-practice-materials/sutras/golden-light-sutra/

To see more advice offered by Rinpoche to politicians, visit “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book”:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/advice-politicians

Watch 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/

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 offering a teaching to monks during puja on Lama Tsongkhapa Day, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, December 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche hand wrote a card with extensive advice for a young student in January 2011. The following advice was extracted from Rinpoche’s card.

Here I want to say something. It’s very, very important to learn to benefit and not harm your parents, but to help them and make them happy. There are three types of karma. With one type you create the karma in this life and see the result in this life. Even helping in a small way is virtuous; it is powerful and therefore you see the result, happiness, in this life. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean only that. In future lives you will experience the results of one good act to your parents, such as praising them, saying nice things. If you harm them or get angry with them, even a small negative action such as criticizing them results in suffering in this life when you are older, not happiness. You can experience suffering in hundreds, thousands, of lifetimes, from that one act of disrespect.

The other type of karma is created in this life and experienced in the next life. Then there is the karma created in this life and experienced after billions, trillions, of eons. Even a small karma doesn’t get lost if it doesn’t meet opposite conditions. The happiness or suffering will be experienced even after eons.

All living beings experience different kinds of lives: success or failure, being educated, becoming a fool or a beggar, being forgetful or wise. Life can change with all kinds of experiences. It doesn’t stay one way all the time. Then it can also change from this life to the next life—being reborn as a hell being, a hungry ghost, a human being, an animal, a sura or asura, having all kinds of lives. These are real facts and the omniscient one, Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, has explained this. Everything can be checked; it’s not blind faith, it’s not just telling people what to believe.

Every single comfort and service you give to your parents is an unbelievably precious cause of success for yourself in this life and future lives. Buddha has shown the correct life that leads from happiness to happiness to enlightenment. Otherwise, life is totally lost and ignorant, like the moths that fly into candle flames and are burnt. Once the suffering or happiness resulting from an action is being experienced, it’s difficult to stop it at that time.

If suffering comes and you don’t know how it happened, the mind freaks out and suffers so much. By knowing about karma, the cause of that suffering, the mind has unbelievable peace. You should understand that negative karma can be purified, that actions done in the past can be purified. If you learn from Buddhism and have wisdom knowing what is right and wrong—the inner science—it will become more and more clear by checking. It’s different from other religions. The more wisdom you have, then no one can cheat you and there is a direction in life for you to follow. Buddha showed how to check and put this into practice for happiness and success. Buddha showed how to develop happiness in life, so that all your wishes get fulfilled and you fulfill others’ needs through Dharma.

Getting angry is one thing that destroys good karma, the cause of happiness, collected from beginningless rebirth. Hundreds or thousands of eons of merit get destroyed by even one second of anger arising toward someone whose mind is at a higher level than yours. If you are not a bodhisattva, getting angry with a bodhisattva for one second destroys hundred of eons of merits. Getting angry with a buddha destroys unbelievably much more. Unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable eons of good karma get destroyed. The most powerful one is the guru, thus anger toward the guru is the worst kind. Practicing patience brings so much peace and happiness from life to life.

By practicing patience and not getting angry, all your merits are protected and you don’t create the cause to be born in the lower realms. One second of anger destroys realizations for hundreds or thousands of eons. So you should live without anger and have a peaceful mind. If there’s only anger, it’s better to not communicate. That helps. Instead of saying something with anger, don’t talk. All actions done with delusion are suffering.

I love you, therefore I am giving you this advice.

This advice “The Wisdom of Dharma” was originally published in “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book” on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/wisdom-dharma

Watch 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/

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.

A young Kopan monk making light offerings on Lama Tsongkhapa Day, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, December 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

“Of course by purifying negative karma collected since beginningless rebirth and by collecting extensive merits, this allows you to have realizations on the path to enlightenment and for your mind to change,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrote to a student who offered 100,000 Vajrasattva mantras to Rinpoche. “There is always hope the mind can change, even to achieve enlightenment, so you can achieve a higher rebirth, ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara and enlightenment.”

“Vajrasattva practice is so important generally, and especially nowadays in the world, when there is not only global warming, but many other problems. There are so many other dangers—of war and sicknesses, cancer, and so many people whom you know are dying. There are so many sicknesses and other conditions for dying.”

“This Vajrasattva practice and other purification practices are the ultimate answer, so everything in the world—what you see, every situation—tells you to practice Vajrasattva. To purify and do Vajrasattva practice is the ultimate answer, to stop the cause to be reborn in the lower realms and the immediate [result] is to have a higher rebirth, to make preparation for death and then to meet the Dharma, to meet the virtuous friend who reveals the path to enlightenment. Then to achieve ultimate happiness, to be free from samsara and to achieve enlightenment for the numberless sentient beings and to free them from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to full enlightenment.”

From “Benefits of Vajrasattva Practice,” posted in Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/benefits-vajrasattva-practice

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

Watch 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/

Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan, Nepal, November 2020. 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 going over the first vital point of the four vital points of analysis as presented in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand by Phabongkha Rinpoche. The first point of this analytical meditation on emptiness is recognizing the object to be refuted, the gag ja in Tibetan. 

Phabongkha Rinpoche’s commentary offers a quote from Shantideva’s Bodhicharyavatara:

Without recognizing the thing that is imputed,
You cannot realize it’s non-existence.

Rinpoche then explains that it is like trying to hit a target with an arrow. Without seeing the target, you cannot aim the arrow at the target. In other words, you need to recognize exactly what is to be negated—what you are imputing as existing, but which doesn’t truly exist—in order to see that it doesn’t exist by its own nature, that it doesn’t exist from its own side.

The commentary continues saying that just hearing an explaination of the self to be negated isn’t enough. You have to ascertain that self, the object to be refuted, through your own raw experience; you have to recognize it for yourself.

If you don’t recognize the object to be refuted, you could fall into nihilism, thinking nothing exists at all. Lama Zopa Rinpoche has a long discussion of this danger, raising the questions: If we believe nothing exists, how do we get and cook food? How do we go to the toilet? How do we even discriminate between what is a toilet and what is not? What is food and what is not? We might start eating the kaka from the toilet if nothing exists! Some people without the merit to understand the teachings spend their whole life meditating on nihilism.

Rinpoche then discusses the three ways of holding the I and offers commentary on each:

1. The way the I is held by those who have realized the right view;
2. The way the I is held by ordinary beings whose mental continuum is not affected by tenets; and
3. The way the I is held by those whose mind is hallucinated.

Rinpoche also explains that you need to differentiate between the two ways in which the I appears:

1. The way in which the I appears to exist from its own side by its own nature, and
2. The way in which the I appears.

The way the I appears to innate I-grasping becomes clear when you are praised or criticized, Rinpoche explains. For example, when you are falsely accused of stealing, the thought “I” that arises solidly and can’t tolerate the accusation is the way in which the object to be refuted appears. This is the appearance of the gag ja, the nonexistent, or false, I.

Rinpoche then introduces two new Dharma stuffed animals who have the following messages:

Rabbit: “I get angry but I try to practice patience. Ha! Ha! Ha!”

Cat: “I am the most beautiful cat in the world but people don’t love me so I practice compassion for them. Ha! Ha! Ha!”

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.

Please note, Lama Zopa Rinpoche will be taking a break of several weeks from offering these video teachings.

All of Rinpoche’s video teachings from this series, along with videos in translation, can be found on the page Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19. (You also can find links to the video teachings, transcripts, and the materials mentioned in them on the page Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 and Practice Advice.)

Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “The First Vital Point Is Recognizing the Object to Be Refuted”:
https://youtu.be/aJd8lxrOekg

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• For more from Rinpoche on the object to be refuted, please see Recognizing the False I
• 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 at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, November 2020. 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 reminding us that the “self-cherishing thought” is what creates all of our suffering, including, since beginningless time, the oceans of animal suffering, the oceans of preta being suffering, the oceans of sura being suffering, the oceans of asura being suffering, and all the different problems and suffering of this life, including obstacles, physical and mental sufferings, and sicknesses. All of this is created by the self-cherishing thought. It not only causes your suffering but has also caused so much suffering for others.

Because of the self-cherishing thought, you have not had any realizations at all; the mind remains like an empty pot. The most frightening mind is the mind that holds the self-cherishing I as real. This is the real enemy. The I that you cherish most is not there at all, not even the slightest atom. Giving up the I and cherishing others is the solution to your suffering.

With bodhichitta—the ultimate good heart cherishing others—you can say goodbye to all the things that destroy your life. You can also say goodbye to doctors and psychologists because you have total peace and happiness of body and mind.

Everything that appears to you is created by your ignorance. Rinpoche shares and discusses this quote from the Fifth Dalai Lama:

Due to the hallucinated appearance of the thick darkness of ignorance,
The way your body and mind appear to you is like a variegated, coiled rope.
With the fear of a poisonous snake due to thinking “I,”
You experience the fear of the three [types of] suffering.

Rinpoche then has a humorous discussion about the difference between snakes, snacks, and snake snacks!

Following on the theme of discussing snakes, Rinpoche then explains the karmic results of killing snakes:

1. The complete negative karma of killing a snake has the ripened-aspect result of rebirth in hell, in the lower realms.
2. The possessed result is that even when good karma ripens and you are reborn as a human being, you still suffer and have many problems in life, including dangers of death, because of killing a snake. You live in places where there are a lot of contagious diseases, obstacles to your health, and so forth. 
3. There is experiencing the result similar to the cause. This is when others kill you as the result of the past karma of killing the snake.
4. There is creating the result similar to the cause. As a result of the past negative karma of killing a snake, even if it was just once, you want to kill again. You created a habit for killing. Then when you kill again, the negative karma created has the four suffering results again. So it goes on and on, on and on. It makes endless suffering of samsara.

If you don’t meet the Dharma, you won’t change your karma, and it goes on forever. By killing that one snake, your samsaric suffering becomes endless. This is why practicing morality, even keeping just the precept not to kill, is so important. If you are smart, you must practice Dharma.

Going back to the quote by the Fifth Dalai Lama, Rinpoche explains the scenario where it is dusk and there is a piece of rope: the way it is curled and due to the lack of light, it appears as a snake. First you label it “snake” with your mind. Then the appearance of a snake comes and you believe this and think, “Oh, there’s a snake!” Then you are afraid and think it will bite you. So much fear. But your mind totally created it. There is nothing there. There is not even one atom of a snake. Not an atom of snake is there. It was produced by your mind.

We need to practice seeing what appears to us as real as actually being created by our ignorance. When something appears—be it a snake or a self-cherishing I—it appears to you as not merely labeled by the mind, even though just a second ago it was merely labeled by your mind. You don’t realize that, you forget that, so it appears real. Due to the negative imprints collected on the mind, on the continuity of consciousness, the merely labeled I is decorated on that, so it appears real. However, real is made by your mind, made by ignorance. The whole world that appears real is created by ignorance. It is good to remember this as a mindfulness practice on ignorance.

The three types of suffering arise from the concept of holding the I to be true. Meditating on emptiness in your daily life leaves imprints that allow you to realize emptiness more quickly. If you realize emptiness, then you can enlighten others and free them from samsara. Then, with the support of bodhichitta, developing the wisdom of emptiness with bodhichitta, and developing bodhichitta with the support of wisdom, you achieve enlightenment for sentient beings!

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 “Everything That Appears to You Is Created by Your Ignorance”:
https://youtu.be/edwCsEeeDTU

• 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 in the garden at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, October 2020. 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 explaining that reciting Togme Sangpo’s Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva cuts loong (wind imbalance). Rinpoche explains that it is incredibly effective for the mind and it would be nice to memorize it as it is short. Then, even when one is walking around, it can be recited and if you are experiencing loong, this will cut it.

Rinpoche also advises that if you do have loong, meditating on emptiness also will cut it. If you don’t meditate on emptiness, no matter how much you know, even if you are an expert on the words from Nagarjuna’s Madhyamaka teachings, if you don’t meditate and don’t practice the loong increases, especially if there is a strong self-cherishing thought and you are holding the I as real. From that, all the 84,000 delusions arise.

The real I that you believe in is not there at all. What appears as real and  what you believe in—the aggregates—are not there, they exist only in mere name. Because you have been habituated since beginningless rebirths with the concept holding the I as truly existent, you have been drunk with this hallucination since beginningless rebirths. You have tortured and cheated yourself all of that time, and because of that you suffer in samsara.

You believe suffering and happiness come from outside but they come from your own mind. Even virtue does not come from outside, it comes from the mind. This includes the virus. We think it came from the outside, but it also came from our mind. Those who have not created the negative karma to get it, never will. Not everyone will get the virus and not everyone will suffer in the same way from it. Some have so much unbelievable pain and some people have no symptoms at all. It is karma.

Rinpoche then shares verse 24 of Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva:

The various problems, like the death of a son [any child] in a dream,
Are hallucinated appearances. By holding them as true, you suffer.
Therefore, whenever you encounter inharmonious conditions,
To look at them as hallucinations is the practice of a bodhisattva.

Rinpoche explains that this is a very good meditation, especially when you encounter problems. Otherwise, you are always looking for outside methods to help with your problems. In fact, everything is a hallucination, like the appearances of a dream. After you wake up from a dream, nothing happened, and while you are having the dream, if you recognize it is a dream, there is nothing there. Everything is like that; however, we think everything is real. Whatever appears as real in the world, we follow that. Someone who realizes emptiness sees everything as a hallucination. It merely appears, but they don’t believe it; there is no holding on to it.

So many problems—depression, relationships, life in prison—you think everything is real. Actually, not one atom exists in reality. You deceive yourself and suffer due to this hallucinated appearance. You should continuously practice awareness that all of your problems and everything you are doing is a hallucination. If you cultivate the mindfulness that whatever you are doing is like a dream, your whole life becomes a birthday party! Mindful meditation on emptiness is a bomb destroying all the delusions.

Rinpoche shares verse 135 from Aryadeva’s Four Hundred Stanzas on the Middle Way:

Like the body is covered by the body sense,
All the delusions are covered by ignorance.
Therefore, all the delusions are stopped
By destroying ignorance.

With the realization of bodhichitta, whatever you do, even breathing or using the toilet, is to bring numberless others to enlightenment. When you don’t have the realization, you have to put so much effort into everything you do in order to do it with bodhichitta. For example, when you open a door to go inside a room, you should think, “I am bringing the sentient beings into the door of liberation, enlightenment.” You can think things like that for each action. And then, when you realize bodhichitta, everything you do is for others. 

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 “With Mindfulness of Emptiness, Your Whole Life Becomes a Birthday Party“:
https://youtu.be/s2KpFrLpvJU

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• Cultivating Mindfulness of Bodhichitta in Daily Activities by Lama Zopa Rinpoche
• Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva by Togme Sangpo
• 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 at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, November 2020. 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 the Dashain festival in Nepal, when tens of thousands of animals are ritually slaughtered. Rinpoche explains that the people who participate in this do not understand karma and experiencing the result similar to the cause in the human realm, which is that you get killed. Then, when reborn as an animal you get killed. If you killed one sentient being, you will be killed five hundred times. There is also creating the result similar to the cause. If you don’t confess the past negative karma that was created due to having killed and if you don’t promise not to do it again, you create the result continuously with no end.

Rinpoche began reading, and also asked the 330 nuns at Kopan Nunnery to read, One Hundred Thousand Names of Buddha for the animals killed during this festival and also for the forty million turkeys killed in the United States for the Thanksgiving holiday. They read it for all the animals—to purify their negative karma and for them not be reborn in the lower realms but to be born as human beings and to be reborn in a pure land where they can achieve enlightenment, or at least meet the Mahayana teachings, meet a perfectly qualified Mahayana guru, and, by pleasing the guru, achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible.

Rinpoche then engages in discussion and debate with Ven. Tenzin Gache on three subjects. We encourage you to look at the transcript of the teaching and follow along in the video to gain the full benefit of the subject matter covered in these discussions:

• Can killing be a virtuous action? Can killing be Dharma? (08:05 in video)
• Is doing tonglen for your own happiness lojong? (19:48 in video)
• Why do the Buddhas not help sentient beings without being requested to do so? (28:12 in video)

Before continuing the oral transmission of the Sutra of Great Liberation, Rinpoche offers commentary on the benefits of the sutra (40:15 in video). Anyone who even hears the name Sutra of Great Liberation collects more merit than filling up a billion universes with wish-granting jewels and offering them to sentient beings. By reading the sutra you collect more merit than filling up numberless universes with wish-granting jewels and offering them to sentient beings, and you are never ever reborn in the lower realms due to reading or even holding this sutra. And anyone who hears this sutra or keeps this sutra will achieve enlightenment. Wherever this sutra exists in the world, a buddha resides there.

Just by hearing the name Great Sutra of Liberation one can say goodbye to depression. Millions of people in the West suffer from depression because they don’t understand the meaning and purpose of life. Many can’t even get out of bed or go out at all, due to being so depressed. Not only hearing this sutra but reading it is so beneficial for a depressed mind.

Rinpoche explains that he has asked Ven. Lekden at Sera Je Monastery to translate this important sutra so that many people can read it in English. Rinpoche advises, if you can read Tibetan, it would be good to buy a copy of Sutra of Great Liberation, carry it with you, and read it from time to time.

Rinpoche offers the oral transmission of several pages of the sutra (1:00:37 in the video) for the animals killed in Nepal, the forty million turkeys killed in the United States, and for seventeen million minks killed in Denmark. (Rinpoche mentions the minks in his debate about “Can killing be a virtuous action?”) 

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 “Even by Hearing the Title of ‘Sutra of Great Liberation,’ You Say Goodbye to Depression”:
https://youtu.be/YGJhzUrH6bU

• 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 during an online teaching, holding a stuffed toy with a Dharma message written on it, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, November 2020. 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 explaining that not only Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha come from every sentient being, but every holy object does as well. There are numberless holy objects, and they all come from sentient beings. We receive unbelievable merit by just seeing a holy object such as a stupa, statue, or scripture. Any by putting our hands together and making offerings to a holy object, we collect numberless, greater merits than by just seeing it. Making offerings to a painting or statue of Buddha is the same as making offerings to Buddha himself.

All the merit we receive comes from all sentient beings—every insect, every ant, mosquito, hell being, hungry ghost, animal, human being, sura being, asura being—every single sentient being. They are the most precious for you. The happiness that comes from money is nothing compared to the happiness that comes from sentient beings. Because of this, every happiness you experience, you offer to even the tiniest insect. Doing every activity in the service of other sentient beings is so important. Then, your life is so happy. You live your life and die without regret.

Even if your mind is not Dharma, every single action you do with your body—whether circumambulating, prostrating, making offerings, and so forth—toward a holy object becomes a cause for enlightenment.

Rinpoche then offers commentary, along with discussion with Ven. Tenzin Gache, on some verses from “Hymns of the Seventh Dalai Lama, Gyalwa Kalsang Gyatso” in the context of recognizing the gag ja (object to be refuted) through the Madyamaka Prasangika point of view.  We encourage you to watch this section on the video and follow along in the transcript provided. (This section begins at 35:16 in video, page 8 in the transcript.)

Rinpoche then explains, again, that you enter the path pleasing the buddhas when the I that you have been holding as so precious since beginningless rebirths, causing suffering, disappears. When you have the experience that there is no I existing from its own side, you have to go through the fear that arises. You may think you are falling into nihilism and believing that no I exists at all. But if you follow the lamrim’s analysis of the four vital points, starting with recognizing the object to be refuted, then you won’t fall into nihilism. So you have to cross that fear, like you have to cross a big river or the ocean. You cross it and then you are where you need to be. You have to go through this experience. Whether you are falling into nihilism or not depends on whether you started your meditation on emptiness by correctly recognizing the object to be refuted. The more you meditate and see that the I does not exist from its own side, the more you see that the I exists in mere name and vice versa.

Rinpoche concludes the teaching saying that there is a creator of virtue and nonvirtue—the I that exists in mere name. And the action of creating virtue and nonvirtue exists in mere name. And the result—happiness and suffering—you experience in mere name. Similarly, you experience the suffering of samsara in mere name. You experience nirvana in mere name. You experience the hell realm in mere name. You experience enlightenment in mere name.

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 “When the Real I Is Totally Gone, You Have Entered the Path Pleasing the Buddhas“:
https://youtu.be/6sOWsiJKx4Y

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• For more from Rinpoche on the object to be refuted, please see Recognizing the False I
• 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 walking during a puja break at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, November 2020. 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 reminding us that the real meaning of life is to not harm and to only benefit the numberless sentient beings. The best way to benefit them is to free them from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to full enlightenment by yourself alone. But to do that, you need to achieve the state of omniscience. To achieve that, you need to actualize the lamrim, the stages of the path to enlightenment. Therefore, with this motivation, you listen to the teachings.

Rinpoche then continues to debate with Ven. Tenzin Gache in a lively, humorous, and illuminating exchange! We highly encourage students to watch this video to receive the benefits of the entire discussion.

Subjects debated between Rinpoche and Ven. Gache throughout this teaching include:

• What makes a table a table?
• What makes a house a house?
• If a table or house is broken, is it still a table or house?
• Is a broken table a table as long as it can support something?
• Is it a house if it doesn’t have a door, a roof, or a certain number of walls?
• Can a chair or sentient being be a table?
• Does whether something is a table or not depend on individual concept?
• Since the parts of a chariot are not a chariot, nor are the pieces assembled together a chariot, how can the parts of a table be a table?

Rinpoche then continues translating and teaching on Phabongkha Rinpoche’s commentary on The Three Principal Aspects of the Path, beginning with a discussion on how things come into existence. For a thing to exist, Rinpoche explains, it must have a valid base and a valid mind labeling it.

If the existence of something can be harmed by another conventional valid mind, it does not exist. As an example, Phabongkha Rinpoche uses a pile of stones in the distance that someone mistakes for a person. Although the person believes it is a human being, if another person who has actually ascertained it to be a pile of stones says, “That is a pile of stones,” the previous apprehension of the pile of stones as a human being will completely fade away. This is a sign that it was not a valid base to be labeled a human being.

Then, using the example of a “rabbit with horns,” Phabongkha Rinpoche shows that in addition to a conventional valid mind labeling something, a valid base must exist for that thing to exist. Because there is no valid base for a rabbit with horns, a rabbit with horns does not exist.

Because things exist in dependence on the collection of their parts, they do not exist from their own side. As an example, Rinpoche explains that if an American president existed from their own side, they wouldn’t need to depend on the collection of parts that form a valid base to be labeled “president.” But in actuality, in order for a person to be president, they must be a valid base, in the sense of possessing the qualities that make them worthy of being a leader and then getting the most votes [in the US from the electoral college]. Only then can they be labeled “American president.”

Further, the I does not exist from the side of the body and mind. There is just the appearance of I that comes about by being merely imputed by sound and concept on the collection of parts that is the valid base to be labeled—one’s own mind.

Phabongkha Rinpoche then shows us how all phenomena come into existence in the same way, which is to say they all come into existence when they are labeled by name and concept. For example, when a house is built with three identical empty rooms, at first the rooms do not exist as the bedroom, kitchen, and so forth. Only after the owner of the house labels them “bedroom,” “kitchen,” and so forth, do we think, “This is the bedroom,” and it comes into existence. Hence, it is not enough for the base to be labeled—the collection of three rooms—to exist. For the bedroom and other rooms to come into existence they need to be labeled by name and concept.

Like the bedroom as an example, any phenomenon whatsoever is the labeled phenomenon, not the base to be labeled. Likewise, the conventional I is also merely labeled by concept. However, to us the I appears to exist from its own side as the one experiencing happiness, suffering, and so forth. The mind that holds the I to exist from its own side is the innate true grasping or the innate view of the perishable collection. The I that is held to exist from its own side is the self that is the object to be refuted.

Phabongkha Rinpoche then provides a useful summary of the points he has made, saying: (1) things are imputed by concept; (2) they necessarily depend on a base to be labeled and that which labels; (3) they arise in dependence on other conditions; (4) they do not exist from their own side.

Following this Rinpoche discusses the I that is the conceived object, which is the object to be refuted. This is the I that is not merely imputed in dependence on the body and mind, and instead exists from its own side on the body and mind. Likewise, when we mistake a coiled rope for a snake at dusk, the conceived object that is held to exist as it appears is the object to be refuted. Therefore, we need to be sure to refute the I that exists from its own side, not the conventionally appearing I nor the I that appears to exist from its own side.

When the I that exists from its own side without depending on the body and mind becomes nonexistent for you, you have found the Madhyamaka Prasangika’s view and the path that pleases the buddhas.

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 “What Makes a Table a Table?“:
https://youtu.be/knfevmdH1WE

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• For more from Rinpoche on the object to be refuted, please see Recognizing the False I
• 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.

One of the turkeys pardoned by US President Donald Trump on Tuesday, November 24, 2020, at the White House, Washington DC, US. Photo by unnamed White House photographer via White House Facebook page.

This year, the holiday of Thanksgiving is celebrated in the United States on Thursday, November 26. Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered the following advice on how to help the tens of millions of turkeys being killed for the holiday, and also how to think about this tradition of killing and eating turkeys. (For the most up to date version of this advice, please see the page “Prayers and Practices to Do for Turkeys at Thanksgiving”.)

On Thanksgiving eve, 2018, the Sangha in Switzerland and I did extensive prayers for those who rely on me, those for whom I promised to pray, those whose names were given to me, and, in particular, all the turkeys killed for Thanksgiving.

We also did Vajrasattva purification, the King of Prayers, and the Amitabha Buddha Prayer to be Reborn in the Land of Bliss. All these practices were dedicated for all beings, but especially for all the turkeys killed for Thanksgiving.

Recently I saw that President Trump had liberated, or pardoned, two Thanksgiving turkeys, a presidential ritual dating back to the 1940s. I am not sure who had the idea to produce and then kill so many turkeys in America for Thanksgiving, but I’ve heard that about 46 million turkeys are killed for that day, which is far, far more than the 250,000 or more animals killed in Nepal for the Gadhimai festival. At that time, Buddhists in Nepal do nyung näs and dedicate for the animals.

If you are Buddhist, or just someone who does not want to suffer now or in endless future lives as well, having to experience unbelievably suffering, you need to purify your past negative karma and stop creating any more so that you will not be reborn as a turkey over and over again.

Of course, there are buddhas and bodhisattvas who eat turkey and other animals, but that is only to benefit those animals. They have great compassion and can’t stand sentient beings remaining in samsara for even one more second. For them, being in samsara is like being caught in a fire or trapped naked in a thorn bush. Every second in samsara feels like that. Their compassion is hundreds and thousands times stronger than ours. Even if we have a little compassion, it is only for those we like; we have no compassion for those we don’t. We feel compassion for those we like because it is mixed with attachment.

If you do have to eat turkey because of some family obligation, then at least do some mantras and prayers to benefit the turkeys, such as the four immeasurables with tonglen. Otherwise, if you just enjoy eating turkey together with the rest of the Americans who are not Buddhist, who do not know Dharma, who have not generated compassion for the turkeys, you create much negative karma.

Here are some practices and mantras you can do, with advice on how to motivate and dedicate.

Practices

1. Vajrasattva. Do this practice with the four opponent powers. If you have received a great initiation or a lower tantra initiation, you can visualize yourself as the deity. Then, in your heart, visualize a lotus, sun, and moon disc on which are all sentient beings, including all the turkeys. Also, if you want to pray for someone who has died or is in great suffering, you can visualize that person there as well. (See also below.)
2. Take the eight Mahayana precepts.
3. Recite prayers such as:
   * King of Prayers (in Eight Prayers to Benefit the Dead, page 5)
   * the dedication chapter from Shantideva’s Bodhicaryavatara, (in Eight Prayers to Benefit the Dead, page 20)
   * Prayer to be Reborn in the Land of Bliss (in Eight Prayers to Benefit the Dead, page 34)
   * and any of the other Eight Prayers to Benefit the Dead

4. Nyung nä. Start the day before Thanksgiving so that the main day of the nyung nä is on Thanksgiving Day itself.
5. Do several repetitions of the four immeasurables and tonglen together (in Daily Prayers, pages 4–5).
6. Recite the Golden Light Sutra.
7. Recite the Vajra Cutter Sutra.
8. Do Chenrezig practice with recitation of OṂ MAṆI PADME HŪṂ.
9. Do the extensive Medicine Buddha puja (The Wish Granting Sovereign), middle-length Medicine Buddha puja (The Wish-Fulfilling Jewel), or short Medicine Buddha Sadhana.

These practices can be done together with others at your center or individually at home.

Mantras

1. Any or all of the five powerful mantras (zungchen dengawa), such as:
   * The long or short Namgyalma mantra. One of the benefits of dedicating your recitation of this mantra to the turkeys is that they will never be reborn in lower realms and will meet buddhas and bodhisattvas. This mantra is not only for long life; it is unbelievably powerful for purification. Just by reciting or even hearing it, you never get reborn into any of the lower realms, let alone as a turkey in the animal realm. Then, until you achieve enlightenment, you will always be reborn in the upper realms and will always be surrounded by buddhas and bodhisattvas. The skies of benefit of this mantra are unbelievable! For further resources, click here.
   * The Stainless Lotus Pinnacle mantra. (Lotus Pinnacle of Amoghapasha mantra). This mantra is also very powerful. By reciting it even a few times, all the turkeys (and anyone else you recite it for) are purified of all their negative karma to be born in hot hells, including the five heavy negative karma without break, which brings rebirth in Avici, the hell of greatest suffering. This mantra also has skies of benefit.
   * The Kunrig mantra.

2. The mantra from the Sutra of Great Liberation. By reciting this just once, from now until enlightenment you will never be reborn in the lower realms. For further resources, click here.
3. OṂ MAṆI PADME HŪṂ

At the end of your practice, dedicate the merit for yourself not to create the negative karma to be reborn as a turkey. So, I’m explaining how to purify the already-created negative karma to be reborn a turkey that has been collected over beginningless rebirths. The other thing, then, is to dedicate not to create such karma in the future. Of course, the basic cause to be reborn as a turkey is killing them, so obviously you need to abstain from that, not to mention killing any other sentient being. These are simple methods, but they have unbelievably profound benefits, like the sky. You can also do more or different practices as well. These are just suggestions. You can also do these practices at Christmas or on other occasions where turkeys and so many other animals are sacrificed and eaten.

Vajrasattva. Artist unknown.

Vajrasattva Practice

Motivation and Taking Refuge

Before you start the practice, reflect on how you have been wandering throughout the six realms from beginningless rebirths, suffering numberless times, and how if you do not practice Dharma now, while you have the chance, if you do not actualize the path at this time, you will have to continue experiencing suffering without end. That is the most important thing to think, and you do so on the basis of having studied the lamrim, the graduated paths of the lower and middle capable beings.

Next, take refuge by relying on Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha to free you from samsara. Then think that it’s not only you suffering in samsara. Contemplate how all the sentient beings in the six realms—the numberless hell beings, the numberless hungry ghosts, the numberless animals, the numberless human beings, the numberless suras, the numberless asuras, and the numberless intermediate state beings—have been experiencing oceans of suffering in each realm, from beginningless rebirths up to now, and will have to experience the same in the future over and over again; endless suffering in samsara, numberless times in each realm.

Meditating on your own suffering in samsara first and then thinking of the suffering of others gives you a much stronger feeling. At first you think about your own beginningless suffering, but realize that that is nothing; you are just one person. Your need for happiness and freedom from suffering is nothing compared to the similar needs of numberless sentient beings. Just like you, every being is important, every being wants happiness and does not want suffering. Therefore, you need to rely on Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha to free all the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, suras, asuras, and intermediate state beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering right away. You can’t stand to see them suffer for even a second longer. So, with your whole heart, rely on Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha to guide them, to free them from samsara.

Then recite the refuge prayer at least three times:

Namo Gurubhya
Namo Buddhaya
Namo Dharmaya
Namo Sanghaya  

You can also recite longer refuge prayers, taking refuge for all sentient beings. This is Mahayana refuge. If you do it just for yourself, it’s Lesser Vehicle refuge.

Then think, “Due to all the past, present, and future merit collected by me and the numberless three-time buddhas and sentient beings, may I achieve full enlightenment in order to benefit all transmigratory beings.”

Here, then, there are two benefits. The first is that you yourself attain enlightenment, which gives you the ability to free all other beings from the ocean of samsaric suffering. The second is that you bring all sentient beings to enlightenment, by yourself alone. So think, “Therefore I am going to do the Vajrasattva purification practice for the benefit of all sentient beings, in particular, the turkeys.”

The Four Opponent Powers

1. The power of the object upon who you depend: Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha; the object in whom you take refuge. Then generate bodhichitta on the object of all sentient beings.
2. The power of blame: remembering and recognizing the negative karmas you have collected from beginningless rebirths up to now, the negative karma created by body, speech, and mind, by breaking the pratimoksha, bodhichitta, and tantra vows and especially the heaviest negative karma that is collected with the guru, which needs to be purified as a matter of urgency.
3. The power of always enjoying the remedy: that is reciting the mantra and visualizing Vajrasattva.
4. The power of committing not to do these negativities again: To do this sincerely and to avoid becoming a liar, think, “From now on I will keep what I can keep and I will abstain from those negativities that are extremely difficult to avoid for a day, an hour, a minute, or at least a few seconds.”

Visualization

Nectar beams emit from Vajrasattva, who is seated on a lotus and moon disc above the crown of your head. These enter your central channel through the crown of your head, purifying yourself, your family, and all six-realm sentient beings, especially all the turkeys. If you want to visualize somebody who has died or anybody else that you want to pray for, somebody who may be sick or experiencing other difficulties, you can visualize that person.

These purifying nectar beams wash away all beings’ obscurations, negative karmas, and broken samaya, which exit your body in the form of liquid coal, dirty black water, and so forth in vast quantities. Any sicknesses you have also leave in the form of pus and blood, and all the conditions for your sicknesses, such as spirit harms, come out in form of snakes, frogs, scorpions, and so forth as well. The main thing to purify is the cause of the sickness and spirit harm: the defilements and negative karmas, which leave in the form of dirty water. Visualize all that while reciting the mantra.

Mantra Recitation

OṂ VAJRASATVA SAMAYA / MANUPĀLAYA / VAJRASATVA TVENOPATIṢHṬHA / DṚIḌHO ME BHAVA / SUTOṢHYO ME BHAVA / SUPOṢHYO ME BHAVA / ANURAKTO ME BHAVA / SARVASIDDHIM ME PRAYACCHHA / SARVA KARMASU CHA ME / CHITTAṂ ŚHRĪYAṂ KURU HŪṂ / HA HA HA HA HOḤ / BHAGAVAN SARVATATHĀGATA / VAJRA MA ME MUÑCHA / VAJRĪ BHAVA / MAHĀ SAMAYASATVA ĀḤ HŪṂ PHAṬ

If you are doing twenty-one recitations of the long Vajrasattva mantra, do the first seven focusing on purifying downwards, called “chasing down”; the next seven focusing on purifying upwards, “chasing up”; and the final seven focusing on “instantaneous purification.”

With chasing down, all the negative karmas and defilements are pushed down by the nectar beams and leave your body through the lower orifices as described above. With chasing up, all the negative karmas and defilements are pushed up and leave through the top of your head, like the wind blowing your hat off. With the third set of seven mantras, focus on sudden purification, which is like switching on a light in a dark room: the darkness immediately goes away. All of a sudden, all your obscurations and negative karma, which are in form of darkness at your heart, disappear. You are totally filled with the radiant light of the nectar beams. This is how it is done.

When you do the Vajrasattva practice, always visualize all sentient beings, especially those with whom you have a connection, at your heart and purify them as well. That helps very much. And, by the way, when in the future you do powa (transference of consciousness) practice for those sentient beings, it works.

At the end of the purification practice Guru Vajrasattva says, “All your defilements, negative karmas, and broken samaya have been completely purified.” Try to really feel that.

Dedication

You can do the regular dedication prayers that are done, such as:

Jang chhub sem chhog rin po chhe
Ma kye pa nam kye gyur chig
Kye pa nyam pa me pa yi
Gong nä gong du phel war shog

May the precious supreme bodhichitta
Not yet born arise.
May that arisen not decline,
But increase more and more.

Then:

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

Due to all the past, present, and future merits collected by me and all the merits of the three times collected by numberless buddhas and numberless sentient beings, may bodhichitta, the source of all happiness and success for all sentient beings, be generated in the hearts of all the sentient beings of the six realms, and especially in the hearts of everybody in this world, including all the students and benefactors of the center and all the volunteers in the FPMT organization. May it be generated in the hearts of all those who rely upon me, all those for whom I have promised to pray, and all those whose names have been given to me. May it be generated in my heart and in the hearts of all my family members, those who are living and those who have died. May the bodhichitta that has already been generated increase.

Due to all the merits of the three times collected by me, the numberless buddhas, and the numberless sentient beings, may all wars, sickness, famine, torture, poverty, and economic problems in the world and all dangers of earth, water, fire, and wind be pacified immediately and may perfect peace and happiness prevail in everyone’s hearts and lives. May the Buddhadharma last for a long time and may the sentient beings in this world meet the Buddhadharma and achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible.

Due to all the past, present, and future merits collected by me and all the merits of the three times collected by the numberless buddhas and the numberless sentient beings, which are completely empty of existing from their own side, may I, who am completely empty of existing from my own side, achieve the state of full enlightenment, which is completely empty of existing from its own side, and lead all sentient beings, who are completely empty of existing from their own side, to that state, which is completely empty of existing from its own side, by myself alone, who is completely empty of existing from my own side.

Further Commentary and Advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Kopan Monastery, November 14, 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

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

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

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

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

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

Then make this dedication prayer, as above:

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

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave this teaching in Switzerland in 2018. Scribed by Holly Ansett. Edited by Nicholas Ribush, November 2020.

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.

For more mantras and resources for mantra recitation, visit FPMT Education Services’ page on mantras:
https://fpmt.org/education/prayers-and-practice-materials/mantras/

Lama Zopa Rinpoche in the stupa garden at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, October 2020. 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 video:

Rinpoche begins this video reminding us what he has been covering in recent teachings on emptiness as he has been going through Phabongkha Rinpoche’s commentary on The Three Principal Aspects of the Path by Lama Tsongkhapa.

Rinpoche picks up the teaching where the previous teaching ended, quoting Phabongkah Rinpoche: “The imputed phenomenon also needs to have three attributes. The three attributes are: (1) it is renowned to a conventional mind, (2) it is not harmed by another conventional valid mind, and (3) it also is not harmed by the reasoning analyzing the ultimate. It must have these three.”

What follows in the video is a lively debate between Rinpoche and Ven. Tenzin Gache, an American monk who is in the geshe studies program at Sera Je Monastery in India and is currently staying at Kopan Monastery.

Ven. Tenzin Gache

For the last few weeks Ven. Gache has been present during the recording of the video teachings. Before going to Kopan, Ven. Gache spent several months in lockdown at Maratika, a Padmasambhava holy place in Nepal, where he went to do retreat in January 2020. 

Topics discussed and debated by Rinpoche and Ven. Gache include:

• For something to exist there also has to be a valid base in addition to the above three attributes.
• Whatever exists is merely imputed “from the side of the mind” by concept.
• Where does the I exist?
• Does the merely labeled I exist after death?
• Does the merely labeled I exist during sleep?
• Does the merely labeled I exist in the aggregates?

This teaching is a great opportunity for us to witness and learn from a wonderful debate. We recommend watching for yourself and following along with the transcript provided. 

Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “How Does the Merely Labeled I Exist on the Aggregates?”:
https://youtu.be/xJSL511LGfw

• 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

Ven. Tenzin Gache grew up in the Boston area of the United States. After graduating college, he traveled to India, and received ordination from His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2006. Later that year he went to Sera Je Monastery, India, joining the house group of his teacher, Choden Rinpoche. Since then he has lived, studied, and practiced at Sera Je. Currently he has completed thirteen  years of the nineteern-year geshe study program at Sera Je. For the last three years he has been studying Middle Way philosophy in-depth. Ven. Gache is the translator of Choden Rinpoche’s book Mastering Meditation: Instructions on Calm Abiding and Mahamudra, which was released this year by Wisdom Publications.

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.