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Advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Zopa Rinpoche explaining the Dharma message he’d written on the stuffed toy, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, July 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 beings this teaching explaining that the foundation of lojong (thought transformation) is not only for utilizing suffering on the path to enlightenment for every single sentient being. If you have happiness, you also dedicate it to sentient beings, to bring them to enlightenment. In this way, whatever happiness you experience is for others. Enemy, friend, stranger—everyone is included here.
When a mosquito is buzzing around you, or someone harms you, you can see whether or not you are really practicing Dharma. No matter how many mantras or prayers you recite, how many retreats you have done, at the time when someone is angry, scolding, or disrespecting you—if your mind is kind and compassionate and you generate patience or forgiveness, or if you get angry and want to kill or crush them (in the case of the mosquito)—you can see whether or not you are practicing Dharma by how much you can dedicate for sentient beings.
Obstacles, disturbing situations, undesirable conditions—all persuade you to practice virtue. You need to complete the paramita of patience to achieve enlightenment. Someone who is angry with you is the practical teacher of patience, a practical guru of patience. Only the person you call “enemy” makes you practice the paramita of patience and puts into practice the teachings you have received. The person you call “enemy” gives you enlightenment.
If you don’t want to be reborn in hell, you have to be careful not to get angry. If you get angry because your present situation disturbs the mind or is unpleasant—why not use logic to stop the anger, which is the cause of the hell realm? If you don’t like the suffering of your unpleasant situation, it is not logical to get angry and create the cause of hell, which is even a heavier suffering. Remembering that people make mistakes out of ignorance gives you an opportunity to generate compassion for them. Their mistake is their delusion, not the person. When our minds are overwhelmed by delusion, our lives becomes so crazy. This is a practical method for bringing peace in the world, to see it this way.
Taking others’ suffering on yourself when you are suffering is like transforming “kaka” into gold. If you cherish others, there is no space in your heart for depression, and you can rejoice all the time while doing normal daily activities.
By becoming habituated to non-virtue, we do non-virtuous actions again and again. Even if we know an action is harmful, we can’t stop from doing it. Even if someone has met the Dharma and thinks Dharma is good, they can’t practice because the mind is so habituated with killing, stealing, telling lies, etc. Even if you receive teachings from great lamas who have all the qualities to reveal the path and are so rare to find in the world, you will not have any realizations because of the habituation of negative karma.
If you are reborn as an animal due to negative karma, what can you do? You have to eat or be eaten by others. The tiny amount of blood eaten by a mosquito is nothing compared to what you have done numberless times. When you hear that mosquito buzzing it means it is suffering, it needs something. When you suffer, you complain to others. It is similar to what the mosquito is doing.
Developing the habit of engaging in non-virtue is very scary. We should develop the habit of engaging in virtue such as perfectly following the guru, renunciation, bodhichitta, and right view. We should be habituated in the six paramitas, including patience. By becoming habituated to the practice of patience, we can practice it more and more. Those who don’t practice patience easily become angry and destroy everything. All the virtues you worked so hard for and the merit you created can be destroyed if you don’t practice patience. By thinking of cause and effect, you can stop ignorance. A childish mind is easily made happy and unhappy.
By following attachment, anger, and ignorance you can end up in the lower realms, losing your precious human rebirth.
In all situations, first you discriminate “bad” and “good,” and then from that anger and attachment arise. Everything is projected. You become attached to something that your mind created. So the point is that there is nothing to be attached to.
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 “Attachment Causes You to Lose Your Precious Human Life“:
https://youtu.be/sDEuOiwD1tI
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 translation, 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.
Khadro-la and Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi offering Lama Zopa Rinpoche a mandala during a special White Tara long life puja offered to Rinpoche, Kopan Monastery, July 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 continuing to discuss vows. Rinpoche explains that lay people can take the refuge vow alone or with some or all of the lay vows.
Since even some animals can be trained to do things, this should inspire human beings to train their minds to do better and actualize the lamrim.
Life is short and this precious human life should not be wasted and thrown away like used tissue paper. Many things in the world are done for attachment instead of learning Dharma. If you learned Dharma but didn’t practice or do retreat, when your life ends, you will not have used your opportunity to purify your negative karma collected since beginningless rebirths. Then life is wasted due to the distraction of being a slave to attachment, anger, and jealousy. Many times, even if we know a lot, we don’t have realizations so we don’t get a chance to change our minds.
That, by making you habituated and acquainted with always engaging in nonvirtue, again you will depend on nonvirtue, engage in nonvirtue, and be reborn following nonvirtue.
By habituating and acquainting yourself with engaging in non-virtue (negative karma), you depend on non-virtue, and will be reborn in non-virtue. His Holiness used the term, “hygiene of emotions” to describe the act of controlling the mind and practicing loving-kindness, compassion, patience, and satisfaction so one doesn’t ruin their immune system with anger. A rough, violent mind eats at the immune system, and then you have no protection against disease, and it is easy to get sick and die. You have to wake up from the sleep of ignorance and defeat the delusions. Every time you follow attachment you are putting yourself in the prison of samsara. It makes life so difficult again and again. Because of habituation, you create negative karma even though you know it is not good.
You can take animals around holy objects. Even though you think you are helping the animal, the animal is also helping you create the cause for enlightenment. Going around holy objects containing the four Dharmakaya Relic Mantras purifies so much negative karma, you don’t have to worry about death.
In a pure land, there is no true suffering because the nature of a pure land is not caused by karma and delusions. Pure lands happen because of the power of prayer and the roots of merit. Living beings in a pure land do not experience true sufferings. All the places in a pure land are free of true suffering. It is important to know how to be reborn in a pure land. Even ordinary beings can easily create the cause to be reborn in Amitabha Pure Land.
We invite you to go deeper into the topics presented here, plus many others, by watching Rinpoche’s video and reading the full transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “By Habituating Yourself with Negative Karma, You Do It Again and Again”:
https://youtu.be/4jmNwix0Sc0
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 translation, 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 and Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi with the staff of Kopan Monastery, Nepal, June 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 explaining that each Sangha person has been a hero for as long as they have been ordained because they conquer the delusions. Sangha must recognize that they are incredibly brave. Since beginningless rebirths we have been slaves to the delusions. Now as Sangha, you face the delusions. By meeting the Dharma you have found a way to defeat the delusions, which have caused suffering since beginningless rebirths.
You think you are alone in the world, but you never are. There are numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas with you, and they are happy with you. Buddhas and bodhisattvas have a hundred thousand times more compassion for you than you have for yourself.
If you practice good karma, abandon negative karma, and live in the vows this will bring all the success and happiness in life. You have to work at this. You have to abandon the cause of suffering and create the cause of happiness. Dharma practice is to defeat delusions—this is important to and remember.
Attachment to others’ bodies is due to habituation from beginningless samsara. The attachment did not come from the side of the object, but from your mind. Depending on how someone treats you, your mind changes in regard to them. You discriminate based on whether they love and praise you or criticize and not like you. All of that is from your side. Beautiful and ugly come from your mind, not from the side of the object.
Only the person who harms you and gets angry at you gives you the chance to practice the perfection of patience. By practicing patience you can overcome anger and not only achieve liberation from samsara, but you are able to achieve enlightenment with infinite qualities of the holy body, speech, and mind so you can do perfect work for sentient beings. So you can see that this person who is your “enemy” is so unbelievably kind and incredibly precious.
You can go crazy with attachment to people’s bodies because you never think about what is inside: the veins, bones, and flesh. Even outer skin is nothing to be attached to if you look closely at it. In reality, the human body is like a meat shop in India or Nepal, where the bodies are hanging with everything that is on the inside hanging out.
From this, you give up a higher rebirth, nirvana, and enlightenment, and bringing numberless sentient beings to enlightenment for a few seconds of pleasure. You yourself created attachment, therefore freedom from it is in your hands. It is also important to meditate on the suffering of change to overcome attachment. What you call pleasure is labeled by the mind. The negative imprint left on the mental continuum by ignorance projects real pleasure and then real pleasure appears. Then, the wrong concept believing it to be real pleasure causes you to be continuously reborn in samsara. Truly existent pleasure is a total hallucination, like taking drugs and seeing things that aren’t there. Attachment cheats you like honey on the blade of a sword.
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 “Attachment to Pleasure Cheats You“:
https://youtu.be/nQy7JBj1GRM
- Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
- 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 translation, 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 with the Kopan board members at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, June 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 even if we do get the virus, we can utilize it and even enjoy it. If we rely only on the self-cherishing thought, we can’t enjoy it because we see only suffering, the suffering of pain. If we enjoy it, we are experiencing it with bodhichitta—conventional and absolute. With that we can experience the sickness of all sentient beings. We take it on and experience it for them, allowing them to be free from samsara by taking on all of their obscurations and sicknesses so they can achieve enlightenment. This is also a quick way to purify our negative karma, collected since beginningless rebirths, and achieve enlightenment for ourselves.
Even when we are happy, comfortable, and enjoying life, if we remember bodhichitta, then that time can be used as the cause for happiness for sentient beings and doesn’t get wasted. If not done with bodhichitta, our comfort and happiness become wasted. When we are suffering or enjoying life, including when we die, we can remember bodhichitta and utilize whatever we are experiencing on the path to enlightenment for sentient beings. In the West, when death happens suddenly there is so much fear—to separate from family, wealth, one’s body. Even when we are not actively dying from a virus or other factors, there are so many conditions for death that have nothing to do with sickness.
There are roughly 350 ordained Sangha in the FPMT organization. The value of Sangha is more than the whole sky filled with wish-granting jewels. Being Sangha and living in morality is the most important way to achieve liberation from samsara and enlightenment, and benefit sentient beings by freeing them from the lower realms and bringing them to enlightenment. Therefore, if you are a monk or nun you should rejoice all the time! When you think about the preciousness of human rebirth, because you have taken vows, you should rejoice as this is the foundation to achieve everything—to liberate numberless sentient beings from samsara and bring them to enlightenment. You are the real hero.
What brings peace to the world is subduing the mind, subduing delusion. What brings chaos to the world and so many problems is the unsubdued and disturbed mind, delusion. Sangha has the main special job of subduing, overcoming, defeating the enemy: delusion. If you are Sangha you must recognize that you are the real hero doing the most difficult thing to do. Lay people living in vows are heroes as well, but because Sangha have more vows they are the real heroes over the delusions.
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 “Remember Bodhichitta When You Are Dying and the Sangha Are the Real Heroes”:
https://youtu.be/COUPMAUoJP0
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 translation, 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 doing the consecration of the Nalanda statues at Chenrezig Institute in Australia via Zoom, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, July 2020. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:
Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching reminding us that while we are in samsara we can never be “well” because our body and mind are under the control of delusion and karma. Replying to “How are you?” with “I’m well” is a response from the hallucinated mind.
Every second you need to feel how precious this human rebirth is so you don’t waste your life in non-virtue. Any activity done can be part of your daily practice—even cleaning. You can think you are purifying your defilements and disturbing thought obscurations, which interfere with achieving enlightenment. You can “clean” your own obscurations and the obscurations of all sentient beings, transforming a necessary mundane activity into the path to enlightenment.
Rinpoche shares the story of how he came to teach the first November Course at Kopan Monastery and how many FPMT centers were started by students who attended courses at Kopan.
Discussing the benefits of ordination, Rinpoche explains that someone who takes the ordination of renunciation (of the householder life) creates more merit in one day than a lay person who creates merit for one hundred years.
If one degenerates the vows, there are so many ways to purify negative karma. In addition to Vajrasattva practice, Thirty-five Confession Buddha practice, one can also do Dorje Khadro fire puja, make light offerings, circumambulate holy objects, read the Vajra Cutter Sutra, and those who have done mahanuttara tantra retreat can do self-initiation to purify pratimoksha, bodhisattva, and tantric vows. Of course, what is most important is doing that which makes the guru most happy. This is the greatest purification and the quickest way to achieve enlightenment. If one is living in ordination, doing sojong (reviving-purifying rite) purifies the downfalls of degenerating or breaking vows.
In order to receive a downfall, one must have four things: a lack of conscientiousness, a lack of respect, not knowing the vows, and many delusions. Rinpoche explains that there are many benefits to protecting morality through taking and keeping vows and provides commentary on each: all your collections of goodness will increase; you will be praised by buddhas, the devas of the white side, and your friends; you will be renowned; sentient beings will listen to your teachings; the realizations of the paths and bhumis increase; you will die happy; day and night you will be happy; you will be protected by the devas; you won’t feel ashamed in front of holy beings; human beings and non-human beings cannot harm you; you receive all enjoyments without effort; and you become like Dzambhala for other 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 “The Benefits of Taking the Ordination of Renunciation and Protecting Morality“:
https://youtu.be/syMyXdkCIjs
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 translation, 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, May 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 thought transformation (lojong) is utilizing unfavorable or undesirable situations on the path to enlightenment. This isn’t done for temporary happiness of a few minutes, then you go back to the problems of life, or even for liberation from samsara. You utilize problems for peerless happiness, full enlightenment—the total cessation of obscurations and the completion of realizations so you can lead all sentient being there.
Since beginningless rebirths we have lived life controlled by our enemies: desire, anger, ignorance, self-cherishing thoughts, and the root of samsara—the ignorance holding the “I as real.
We have experienced the six-realm sufferings since beginningless rebirths. Whatever we see—insects, animals, people suffering—we have gone through that. We don’t remember. But just like we don’t remember what we ate or said yesterday, we don’t remember our previous rebirths due to ignorance, pollution. No level of education or amount of money can save you from the lower realms if you don’t purify your negative karma before you die. Only good karma from practicing loving-kindness, compassion, and bodhichitta can bring you enjoyments in your next life.
Even without devotion, you collect numberless merits just by seeing a holy object. By making offerings to a holy object, you won’t be reborn in the lower realms for 840,000,000 eons. However, people who have the opportunity to make offerings are often lazy and distracted by life, which is like throwing a diamond into the garbage.
Whatever vow you take with bodhichitta benefits every single sentient being, no one is left out. This is very beautiful—no matter the problems that beings experience—wars, famine, diseases, etc.,—every vow you keep is for everyone. The merit of keeping one vow for one day is far greater than making extensive offerings to billions of buddhas. Your human rebirth is so precious because you can use it to keep even one vow for one day.
The basis of all qualities is keeping pure morality. You must cherish and protect this. This is the root of Buddha’s teaching. Starting with the five precepts through the vinaya, keeping vows protects and preserves your morality. Without a bhikshu holding vinaya there is no teaching of the Buddha. This is why monasteries and nunneries are so important and why we have so many Buddhist countries. If you don’t control your mind by living in vows, your mind brings you the worst, heaviest suffering. However, by remembering your morality and keeping vows, you have no fear and all the virtue comes into your hands.
Rinpoche concludes by continuing to offer the oral transmission of Sutra of Great Liberation.
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 “This Perfect Human Body Is So Precious Because You Can Use It to Keep Even One Vow”:
https://youtu.be/gdJHUxaTW9o
- Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
- 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 translation, 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 outside the Kopan canteen, where he had tea with some monks, Kopan Monastery, June 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:
This video begins with long-time FPMT student Massimo Corona, who arrived at Kopan Monastery in 1971, explaining how he met Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Massimo, who also served FPMT Inc. as its executive director and a member of the board of directors, helped bring FPMT to his home country, Italy. With the financial assistance of his family, Massimo was able to purchase and offer an old stone castle in Tuscany in 1977. This became the home of Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa and firmly established FPMT in continental Europe.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching explaining that people can misuse their precious human rebirth to create negative karma, which is like using gold to buy “kaka.” By recognizing how precious the human rebirth is, we then don’t waste it on meaningless things. Even without vows, avoiding killing, stealing, lying, etc., will help keep you from going to prison. We need to abstain from creating negative karma and have self-discipline. Even keeping one of the five lay precepts brings so much happiness to others by protecting them from being harmed by you. Taking vows is also practical. Without them, you not only waste your life, you use it to create non-virtue.
Due to ignorance, we live life with obscurations in the mind, like being in a fog without any sun, moon, or stars. The truth doesn’t exist in that kind of mind, and we follow a hallucinated life, thinking, “This is real. This is truth.” In the West, people think it isn’t possible to live a life without attachment and self-cherishing thoughts or activities. However, in the East, numberless beings have become enlightened, and there are many holy places. Buddhism has now spread to the West, but there is a shallow understanding of the teachings. People need to be willing to bear hardships, like Milarepa did, in order to practice Dharma. We need to bear hardships to overcome delusions and have realizations. Buddhism is not easy. To go deep into Buddhism, we have to dedicate our life to it and make sacrifices. The first Dharma practice is to renounce worldly concern.
Unless we have omniscience or very high clairvoyance, we aren’t able to see others’ minds and we can’t tell who is enlightened. When holy beings appear to be doing normal activities or appear ordinary, our obscured mind cannot see that they are enlightened. It is possible that someone who appears very ordinary is enlightened, and we can make many mistakes in relation to them.
When you actualize bodhichitta, you don’t do any single activity with the motivation of cherishing yourself, everything is for every other being including the numberless beings in numberless universes.
By realizing impermanence and death, you can overcome laziness and everything you do becomes holy Dharma. With the realization of impermanence, Dharma becomes easy. And then doing non-Dharma worldly things becomes difficult because you are aware of the shortcomings.
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 You Realize Impermanence, Dharma Becomes Easy”:
https://youtu.be/WqkCy443X7I
Find more advice and video teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche from Kopan Monastery and also links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, 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 with Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi and other Kopan monks on top of Kopan Hill, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, June 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:
Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this video by explaining that the subject of the teachings he has been providing from Kopan Monastery is lojong, thought transformation—transforming sufferings (including this virus) into ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara, and enlightenment so that sentient beings can achieve full enlightenment, the total cessation of obscurations and the completion of all the realizations.
Without self-discipline life is filled with so much suffering. There’s no peace and unbelievable dissatisfaction. We think these problems come from the outside, but they never do; they all come from the mind. You have to practice contentment, patience, compassion, and loving-kindness—all qualities of a good human being. Without doing this, your whole life is suffering.
Meditation is to free yourself from the oceans of samsaric suffering by ceasing and eradicating the root of samsara, which is the ignorance that holds “I” as real. How the “I” exists is that the mind focuses on the aggregates and merely imputes “I.” When the “I” appears back to you, it appears in all the wrong ways. It appears permanent, without parts, and independent. It is labeled by the mind and does not truly exist. It is a dependent arising. It is not possible for something to exist from its own side. The “I” is so extremely subtle that it is as if it doesn’t exist. The wisdom realizing that the “I” is empty of existing from its own side eradicates the ignorance that is the root of samsara. The wrong concept that believes that the “I” exists from its own side is the root of suffering. All of your suffering comes from your wrong concepts, from your mind, not from the outside.
Ignorance functions to give rise to the other delusions. Ignorance exaggerates “good” and “bad” and from that anger and attachment arise. This is all based on the object of ignorance, which is a totally wrong concept. If you follow attachment with no self-discipline, no contentment, no satisfaction, your life becomes crazy.
By taking vows (Rinpoche goes through the various levels of vows), in addition to meditation and listening to teachings, you practice self-discipline and generate so much merit.
Rinpoche concludes by continuing to offer the oral transmission of Sutra of Great Liberation.
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 “Without Self Discipline, It’s Like You Throw a Bomb on Your Life”:
https://youtu.be/ClQdXk1dvdY
- Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
- Sutra of Golden Light resource page
- Recognizing the False I by Lama Zopa Rinpche
Find more advice and video teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche from Kopan Monastery and also links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, 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 with Khyongla Rato Rinpoche at Root Institute, India, January 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:
This video begins with footage of Rinpoche, which was filmed by Richard Gere, receiving the lung of the dharani Extremely Conquering from Bondage from Khyongla Rato Rinpoche at Root Institute in India.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching explaining that if we create the cause to be born in the lower realms and we do not purify this before death comes, we are reborn there and will have to suffer again and again until the karma finishes. As a human beings, we have total freedom to purify our negative karma, and there are many practices to do this. This precious human rebirth can end at any time, while we are doing any daily activity—we never know when we will die.
Many believe that everything that happens in one’s life is up to God, or Buddha, or somebody who has the highest power. But the question arises: If everything is up to God or Buddha, why is there suffering? Don’t they have compassion for the world? His Holiness the Dalai Lama says that the human brain is special because it can be used to analyze. We have to put in effort from our side, we have to analyze. If you just think, “Oh, God will take care,” then you can just follow all the delusions and whatever the selfish mind wants, and thus live life creating negative karma, thinking someone else more powerful will take care. In reality, we created the cause of suffering ourselves. Therefore, we have to generate the whole graduated path to enlightenment: correctly following the virtuous friend, renunciation, bodhichitta, right view, and tantra.
Rinpoche continues explaining the benefits of Sutra of Great Liberation and continues giving the oral transmission for this sutra.
Buddhism explains how to be free from suffering forever. Even if we don’t die from the virus, we will die from something else. Buddhism has so many ways to rescue us from suffering, and offers so many ways to help others. If you do get the virus, you can experience it and make it useful for sentient beings by thinking that they will receive enlightenment due to you taking on the virus. In this way, you not only utilize the virus for happiness, but for ultimate happiness, and to achieve enlightenment for the numberless sentient beings so that they can be free from oceans of samsaric suffering by you bringing them to enlightenment as well.
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 “Buddhism Has So Many Ways to Rescue Us from Suffering”:
https://youtu.be/pDi16-BVzZw
- Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
- Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings
Find more advice and video teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche from Kopan Monastery and also links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, 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, May 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
The Six Perfections: The Practice of the Bodhisattvas is a new book from Lama Zopa Rinpoche, published by Wisdom Publications in March 2020. In it, Rinpoche walks us through this key Mahayana Buddhist teaching. Here’s an excerpt from Rinpoche’s teaching on the perfection of patience:
There is nothing pleasant at all about anger. Irritation, agitation, impatience, sullenness, spite—all these sorts of negative emotions overwhelm us and refuse to give us one moment’s peace, whereas when we have patience, we have genuine peace. There is no question of which is preferable. The frustrated, unhappy mind is the fuel that can easily grow into anger. Until we have learned to overcome that anger with patience, it will destroy any happiness we have.
It’s not that anger and hatred are weak minds. With hatred our mind is incredibly focused on the object of our hatred and how to destroy it. We should turn that strength around to destroy the real enemy, focusing all our attention on what is really causing us such unhappiness—our own anger. We need to destroy it completely with patience.
We don’t have to become angry when an enemy tries to harm us or when adverse situations occur. It’s impossible to avoid problems, but when we analyze such situations, we will see that there is no reason for becoming unhappy. Unless we can generate a happy mind, how can we renounce the unhappy one? We therefore need to think well on the benefits of voluntarily accepting suffering and make a strong determination to not allow anger and frustration to arise, no matter what happens around us.
It is very easy to let a day go by without practicing patience, then a week, a month, a year. Before we know it, our whole life has gone and then, suddenly, unexpectedly, death happens and we have never developed patience in our mind, despite all the teachings we have studied and retreats we have done. At the time of death it’s too late to regret not developing patience.
What we can do now in a very practical way is to watch our mind, and the moment it is disturbed by somebody or something, by understanding the terrible effects of anger, we determine to not allow even a moment of anger to arise. We can make a plan to do this for a certain time each day and gradually increase it. If we train our mind in patience in that way, doing whatever we can to overcome any angry thought that arises, by keeping at it, change will definitely happen, year by year. Seeing how there is so much more peace now that the angry mind does not arise gives us the determination to practice patience even more. Then, thinking back on how we once would have become angry from one sharp word from a colleague at work or from the noise of branches tapping on our window disturbing our sleep, we will wonder why we ever got so angry. It is just a matter of practice.
Cover of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s book
Learn more about The Six Perfections: The Practice of the Bodhisattvas, including order information, on Wisdom Publication’s website:
https://wisdomexperience.org/product/the-six-perfections/
Find recent advice and video teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche from Kopan Monastery and also links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, 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.
Kopan monks doing Lama Chopa on Saka Dawa at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, June 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:
This video begins with Ven. Thubten Samphel, discussing his early life, how he became one of the first monks of Lawudo Gompa and Kopan Monastery, and what daily life was like at these places in the beginning.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching explaining that we can have victory over this virus, if we contract it, by utilizing it on the path to enlightenment. This virus is just one of the shortcomings of samsara and can be used to benefit even the tiniest sentient beings. You can use the virus to not only bring temporary happiness to others, but to free them from oceans of samsaric suffering and then bring them to total cessation of obscurations and completion of realizations. The virus is just one example—you can use any problem, any relationship, any circumstance, to benefit others.
This precious human rebirth is so precious because we can use it to generate loving-kindness. This is more meaningful than living life under the control of distraction and attachment. You receive skies of merit meditating on immeasurable loving-kindness. From the four immeasurable thoughts:
How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were to have happiness and the causes of happiness.
May they have happiness and its causes.
I myself will cause them to have happiness and its causes.
Please, Guru-Deity, bless me to be able to do this.
Making innumerable offerings to all the buddhas, or offering three hundred different food items every day, does not compare to generating loving-kindness toward sentient beings for even a few seconds. Cherishing sentient beings as precious, holding them as extremely dear, is loving-kindness.
If someone harms us, our solution is usually to harm them back. Because of this, we continuously receive harm. Therefore, if we are harmed, do not harm back. The self-cherishing thought that says, “I am the most important. My happiness is most important,” is a total hallucination. It is like drinking poison, thinking it is nectar.
Buddha defeated a million maras by meditating on loving-kindness. If you practice loving-kindness, if you practice bodhichitta, this is the best protection from life’s dangers.
Rinpoche discusses Nagarjuna’s benefits of generating loving-kindness, which include: devas and humans will love you; devas and humans will protect you; you will have happiness of mind and many happinesses; you won’t be harmed by poison and weapons; without effort you will achieve success; and you will be born in the world of Brahma.
The merit of practicing each of the four immeasurable thoughts cannot fit into universes equaling the number of grains of sand in the Ganges River. The four immeasurable thoughts are immeasurable equanimity, immeasurable loving kindness, immeasurable compassion, and immeasurable joy. Meditate on the four immeasurable thoughts, but don’t do them thinking of eating pizza or going to the beach. Especially if you meditate with tonglen, this is amazing.
Rinpoche ends this teaching discussing the benefits of the Sutra of Great Liberation and continues to offer the oral transmission of it.
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 “This Perfect Human Rebirth Is So Precious Because You Can Use It to Generate Loving Kindness”:
https://youtu.be/lRS0-0HcRJw
- Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
- The four immeasurable thoughts are recited in many practices. You can find them in Daily Prayers.
- Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings
Find more advice and video teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche from Kopan Monastery and also links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, 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.
Most Secret Hayagriva Tsog Kong offered for Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s long life, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, June 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:
This video starts with an introductory clip of a Losar video of Lama Zopa Rinpoche talking about a quote on the benefits and results of practicing virtue. The quote was on a card sent by His Holiness the Sakya Trichen. Rinpoche then reminds us to please enjoy our life by transforming our body, speech, and mind into virtue as much as possible.
Rinpoche begins the teaching explaining that any bad, unfavorable, or undesirable conditions can be transformed into the path to happiness—not just temporary happiness, but ultimate happiness. Bad conditions, and even the happiness you experience, can be utilized in this way. This prevents us from using our precious human life like toilet paper, a total waste.
By harming others, you will get sick, Rinpoche explains. This includes killing animals for food or for business. Seeing the suffering of animals causes us to generate compassion and reminds us to practice Dharma.
This perfect human rebirth is so precious. The purpose of this life is not just to achieve happiness, or the blissful state of peace for oneself, but to benefit others.
For example, prostrating or making offerings to a statue of Buddha creates far more merit than just seeing a statue.
Tibetans make water bowl offerings to holy object because it doesn’t cost anything and it doesn’t cause pride to arise. If an offering costs a lot of money, pride can develop rather than rejoicing. In this way, offering water can become a pure offering and you collect a lot of merit. Water is wet, so offering it helps the mind become soft, rather than selfish and hard like a rock. With a soft mind one can develop loving kindness, bodhichitta, and the ultimate good heart.
Extensive water bowl offerings are made every day at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington State, US; Kachoe Dechen Ling, Aptos, California, US; Ganden Do Ngag Shedrup Ling, Mongolia; Amitabha Buddhist Centre, Singapore; Kopan Monastery, Nepal; and elsewhere.
Offering water bowls creates far more merit than simply seeing a holy object. Instead of thinking that the offering bowls contain water, which is how it appears to the human mind, you can create even greater merit by thinking that the offering bowls contain the purest nectar, which is how the offering appears to a buddha.
In Tibet, you can put the water that has been offered into a garden or clean ground. Because it is blessed water, you can’t put it in a dirty road or somewhere unclean. However, in the West, many houses don’t have gardens. So in this case, the sink where one washes up is the only place it can go, but not in a toilet, which would be very disrespectful.
By offering flowers to holy objects this creates the cause to have a beautiful body and to have a holy body that sentient beings never get bored of seeing.
By offering incense to holy objects this creates the cause to have pure morality from life to life. Incense is usually better than offering perfume because some perfumes cause attachment to arise.
By offering light to holy objects this creates the cause to develop wisdom; it eliminates ignorance. Offering light also creates the cause to have a beautiful body. Offering light is very important because ignorance causes us to suffer in the lower realms. When you see animals, you can generate compassion. Those born in the lower realms continuously suffer and create negative karma day and night.
By offering food to holy objects this creates the cause to have a long life, an increase in enjoyments, and immortality.
By offering music to holy objects this creates the cause for millions of people to be attracted to the sound of your voice, to have perfect holy speech, and to achieve all the qualities of the holy speech.
There is no difference at all between making offerings of water, flowers, incense, light, food, music, etc. to an actual buddha and making offerings to a statue of a buddha.
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 “This Perfect Human Body Is So Precious Because You Can Use It to Make Offerings“:
https://youtu.be/ZUzLwDX6Ndk
- Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
- Resources on Holy Objects
- Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings
Find more advice and video teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche from Kopan Monastery and also links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, 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.