Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Khadro-la, Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi, Kopan Lama Gyupas, and Kopan nuns, during consecration of the large appliqué 21 Taras and 8 Taras That Save from Fear thangkas outside Kopan Monastery’s main gompa, Nepal, January 2021. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

In the following Essential Extract video, from a teaching Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave in December 2019 at Kopan Monastery, Rinpoche explains the wheel of life drawing and reminds us that death can happen at any time. In the drawing you can see that the whole wheel is in between fangs. During our whole life we are between the fangs of Yama. And they can close any time. Rinpoche recalls a couple of events where people have died suddenly and unexpectedly. He strongly encourages us to meditate on death and impermanence. Otherwise you live your live with the concept of permanence, thinking “I will live long,” while wasting time. When you lie in bed, think, “Now I am lying here in my bed, but tomorrow I can already be on the pile of firewood in the cremation ground.” When you think this, attachment and anger have no reason to exist, and the mind is at peace.

Watch the sixteen-minute video “Our Whole Life We Are in between the Fangs of Yama”:
https://youtu.be/8HvK38Cm0HE

Transcript: So, I mentioned that the dongka, this is fangs, like you are in the mouth of Yama, impermanence, nature of impermanence, under impermanence. So holding like this, but anytime can be like this, mouth can close. So anytime death can happen. You never know, never you know. By next time this year, you are somewhere else—you never know—hell or deva realm, you never know where, by this time next year, by this time tomorrow. We can’t say—can close the mouth, you are inside now, between the fangs, but it can close anytime. So that is a very good meditation—it can close anytime. (Rinpoche closes his fingers.) It can close anytime, so death can happen anytime. You never know.

Even recently, I think in America or somewhere, it might be in the house, [someone] just suddenly died, who, I forgot. (Pause) Pende’s mother. Father and mother [were] talking in the house. They were talking to each other, and father did like this (Rinpoche turns his head), during that time mother, dead. They were just talking, the father and mother. Father went this way, then mother dead. So it always happens that.

One student here, she wanted to become a nun so much, unbelievable, so much. Khadro-la would see, of course. She is young, I think didn’t inspire her to become nun. Of course, Khadro-la can see past, present, and future. She [the student] died here in the toilet. She died here in the bathroom. I forgot her name. I have a big buddha in my room, I told them to make for her purification, good rebirth. I was thinking that her father to keep the buddha in the house, but the father didn’t want, so I have it in my room. … (Rinpoche offers more examples, see complete transcript.)

Like that anytime it can happen. I think that is the most important meditation, that is my, well, I haven’t started Vajrasattva, but my last advice is that. To remember, to always remember mindfulness, to always remember impermanence-death, that is my last very important advice, very important advice. I think that was also said by the Buddha, I forget now, to his disciples. Oh, that.

Kadampa geshe Sharawa said, “Even you have one hundred qualities, but you are under one mistake.” (Tibetan) So many, so many degrees from university, all this, all that, so many, like that, wow—but then even Dharma, even Dharma, “Oh, I know this, I know Madhyamaka, I know Pramanavartika, I did this retreat, that retreat, bah, bah, bah, bah.” But if you haven’t thought of impermanence-death, then there is the concept of permanence, so your life is under the control of hallucination. So “even if you have a hundred qualities but you are under one mistake,” so learned in Dharma texts, so many things, but you never thought of impermanence-death, yourself, or yourself, so then always you live with a concept of permanence, “I will live very long, I will live long,” always the concept of permanence. Then your actions of body, speech, and mind don’t become Dharma. You are very learned in Dharma, yes, unbelievable, but you never think of impermanence, your life is impermanence-death, you never think, so “I’m going to live long,” then your actions of body, speech, and mind don’t become Dharma. So here, even you are expert in Dharma but you waste your life. You understand? So like that. Did that retreat, this retreat, bah, bah, bah, but never, your own life impermanence-death, you didn’t think, so always wrong concept of permanence.

That is what Kadampa geshe Sharawa said. Even living in the monastery, doing extensive study, understanding and can explain, but never thought of impermanence-death, so your actions, with the concept of permanence then your actions didn’t become Dharma. Then death happens, then you know you cheated yourself. That is what you come to know, totally. There are more words, but… As I said, as I told before, same thing, even you are not learned in Dharma, nothing, but a lot of degrees, a lot of education in science, this and that, so many things, but never thought your life is impermanent, then suddenly—but you always live in concept of permanence—then suddenly when death happens so regret, so upset, so regret, bah, bah, bah, because you didn’t expect it, bah, bah, bah.

If you normally meditate, or you normally think, mindful in your life of impermanence-death, if you practice mindfulness every day remember, the awareness in that, even when death comes suddenly, you are not surprised. You are not worried because you did preparation. You did preparation because of mindfulness of that, so you did already preparation. So future life, to achieve happiness, body of happy transmigratory being, liberation from samsara, then enlightenment, thinking of impermanence-death, so then you have no worry when time of death comes, the actual time of death comes. Even for business people it is easier, normally you think so therefore it is easier. But normally you don’t think, so then it is incredible fear, bah, bah, bah, can be anger, like the Japanese boy, sssssh, can be incredible fear. Then of course, then, next life reincarnation, bah, bah, bah, good rebirth, higher rebirth, negative karma, lower rebirth, sssssh, there is another one.

So here it says, it is a good body, the body is here now, body is in your bed, body is here, but by this time tomorrow the body can be on the firewood, burned, skull coming out. You see the skull. (Rinpoche snaps his fingers.) Just anytime this can happen. (Rinpoche snaps his fingers.) It is so good, so good even meditating that you are dying, now you are dying. The whole thing, what is going to happen, going to the cemetery, the body by this time tomorrow, cemetery and fire, next year or next month, next week, tomorrow, the body could be there. That is so good, good meditation, so good meditation, that, to meditate, to think that. It is the reality. (Rinpoche snaps his fingers multiple times.) Then attachment to this and that, anger to this, bah, bah, bah, then you have no, there is no purpose to get angry and to be attached. This and that, all the problems, there is no reason to arise anger and attachment. The mind has great peace, free from attachment, free from anger.

Watch more videos from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching from the 2019 Kopan Course, the annual month-long lamrim course at Kopan Monastery in Nepal:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/kopan-2019/

Find more Lama Zopa Rinpoche Essential Extracts videos:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/essential-extracts/

During February 2021, Rinpoche is taking a break from offering his video series Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19. You find links to the ninety published videos in this series as well as 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 circumambulating Boudha Stupa late at night, Nepal, January 2021. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Patience: A Guide to Shantideva’s Sixth Chapter is a recent book of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings on the perfection of patience, a topic Rinpoche has taught on extensively. In this book, Rinpoche gives commentary on the verses on patience in Shantideva’s A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. Here’s an excerpt from the chapter “How to Accept Suffering”:

Shantideva next explained that whatever we do will become easier the more we practice it. This is very important advice. Whether something is easy or difficult depends on how acquainted we are with it. It all depends on training. Say we have been living with bugs for a long time: fleas, bedbugs, and so forth. This becomes normal for us. Fleas in our clothes, lice in our hair—they don’t bother us at all after a while. On the other hand, if we have never come across bugs before, if we are used to sleeping in a clean, soft bed and living a very luxurious lifestyle, to encounter bugs for the first time is a great shock. While there are fleas in our house we can’t do anything. We want them killed or we want to buy a new house!

Training the mind in patience can be done for worldly reasons or for the Dharma. I mentioned the people in India who cut and burn their bodies and fast for many days—something we cannot do. They can do this because they have trained their minds to accept that suffering, mistakenly thinking it is worthwhile. It all depends on how the mind—the colorless, shapeless, immaterial mind—interprets things. Something we find impossible to do can be done by somebody else easily. For a person who seeks worldly pleasure, practicing the Dharma is extremely difficult because their mind sees it as difficult. On the other hand, they will persevere for what they dearly want—possessions, reputation, and so forth—no matter how difficult, willingly undergoing hardships and danger.

For a Dharma practitioner it is completely the opposite. All the hard work needed to gain possessions, reputation, and so forth seems utterly pointless, but they willingly accept suffering to obtain the happiness of future lives, liberation from samsara, and enlightenment. Whereas the smallest samsaric thing is unbearable, they are happy to do the most difficult Dharma work.

Shantideva said we should not be impatient with things such as heat, cold, insect bites, and so forth, because if we are, then we will become increasingly intolerant of them. Conversely, we need to slowly build up our acceptance of small sufferings so we can start to accept greater ones.

Things that irritate us now, such as bad weather, can be the beginning of our training, learning to accept them for the sake of other sentient beings because we see the importance of developing patience on our road to enlightenment. Gradually, once we train our mind in these small sufferings, we can learn to become like the Buddha when he was a bodhisattva and give our body to a starving tiger.

Therefore it is greatly worthwhile to train the mind in patience in this way. If we live in a place that is full of snakes, mosquitoes, fleas, and bedbugs, it is like living in a palace full of jewels.

Excerpted from Patience: A Guide to Shantideva’s Sixth Chapter by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, edited by Gordon McDougall, published by Wisdom Publications:
https://shop.fpmt.org/Patience–A-Guide-to-Shantidevas-Sixth-Chapter-eBook_p_3366.html

Watch the video series “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19” and find links to videos in translation, 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.

Khadro-la, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and Ven. Thubten Tendar, Kopan Monastery, December 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Patience: A Guide to Shantideva’s Sixth Chapter is a new book of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings on the perfection of patience, a topic Rinpoche has taught on extensively. (Perhaps this is not surprising since Rinpoche’s name “Zopa” means “patience.”) In this book, Rinpoche gives commentary on the verses on patience from Shantideva’s A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. Here’s an excerpt from the chapter “Overcoming the Wish to Retaliate” where Rinpoche discusses the conventional reason anger is inappropriate:

Ultimately, the enemy who gives harm and the harm itself are both empty. Neither exists inherently in any way. Because we are unable to see it like this, we should train to see things as like illusions, like dreams—maybe like hallucinations that happen when we take LSD! Because everything is dependent on other factors and nothing governs itself, these illusion-like phenomena are nothing to get angry about. It is like in our dreams there might be an enemy, but when we awaken we realize there is no enemy there, existing by its own nature.

The enemy is like a dream enemy, but that does not mean they are actually a dream, that is, nonexistent. When we are meditating on emptiness, we must be so skillful not to fall into nihilism. In his Four Hundred Stanzas, Aryadeva said that believing that nothing exists—including the I and karma—and hence falling into nihilism creates karma heavier than having killed a hundred million people.

If the emptiness of the I meant there were no I at all, either truly existing or merely labeled, then nothing would exist. No suffering would exist; no pleasure would exist. There would be no need to move the body, no need to breathe. Everything would be completely pointless. Everything we do is to attain happiness and stop suffering, but if there were no I at all, none of our actions would have any effect. With no I, why have expensive treatments in hospital to cure the I that doesn’t exist?

Many mistakes arise when we mistakenly think that the I doesn’t exist at all. We meditate to try to attain a peaceful, happy mind, but this I cannot receive any peace because it doesn’t exist. There is no karma, no cause, and no effect. There is no point to anything and no reason to refrain from creating negative actions.

To think that because there is no I, no enemy, no phenomenon, and therefore nothing matters, we deny karma. That is a completely dark mind; it is very dangerous. Emptiness is not nothingness; meditating on emptiness is not watching nothing, like sitting in a helicopter looking at blank sky.

Nothing exists ultimately, but because everything is a dependent arising, everything exists conventionally, existing in dependence on causes and conditions. The enemy, the anger they have, the harm they give us, all arise due to causes and conditions. The suffering we feel from that person’s anger has arisen due to karma, the negative actions we have done in the past, therefore we should not become angry in return.

For instance, it might seem that being criticized is a cause of anger, but if it that were so, then anybody who ever received criticism would have to get angry. That is not so. Somebody could criticize a buddha or a bodhisattva and no anger would arise at all. Even many ordinary goodhearted people will not react to criticism and other harmful actions.

A higher bodhisattva, who has totally renounced the self and only cherishes others, has still to remove the subtle imprints to knowledge, but all the grosser disturbing-thought imprints have been destroyed, so it is impossible to become angry even if somebody tried to harm them. Anger is only a condition; it is not an inherent cause. And because the cause is our own delusion, there is no reason to be angry at the person who has harmed us.

Excerpted from Patience: A Guide to Shantideva’s Sixth Chapter by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, edited by Gordon McDougall, published by Wisdom Publications (WisdomExperience.org).

Watch the video series “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19” and find links to videos in translation, 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 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.