Advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Lama Zopa Rinpoche blessing water to put in a city park pond to bless the fish and ducks in the pond, Madrid, Spain, October 2018. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

While teaching in Madrid, Spain, in October 2018, Rinpoche summarized the whole path to enlightenment, emphasizing the importance of the guru. The path also includes developing renunciation, bodhichitta, and an understanding of gross and subtle emptiness, and eventually practicing tantra. Here’s part of this teaching:

When your mind is living in correctly following the virtuous friend, realizing this, you are looking at each guru as all the buddhas, buddhas’ dharmakaya. You are not only looking with devotion and following with devotion, but your actions are fulfilling the wishes and following the advice of the guru.

Each time you follow what the guru advises you, for example, even reciting mantras—each day reciting two thousand or one thousand OM MANI PADME HUM—then each time you recite OM MANI PADME HUM, you become closer to enlightenment. You become closer to enlightenment by reciting OM MANI PADME HUM one time. The guru gave advice to recite every day one thousand mala or two thousand mala, so each time you recite OM MANI PADME HUM, you become closer to enlightenment, closer to being free from samsara, you understand? Then also the number of vows that have been given to you, as you follow the advice, each day, each hour, each minute, you become closer to being free from samsara and closer to enlightenment.

Like Milarepa, even when you are just so busy doing work, for example you are manager or you are a builder or something, but due to the guru’s advice, you are all the time working with the people, talking with the people, walking up and down, with each step you fulfill the guru’s advice and wishes. Then with each step, each action at work you do, you are collecting the most unbelievable merits and purification. Then you’ll more quickly be free from samsara and more quickly achieve enlightenment with each step, each talk you do, because it is according to the guru’s advice, fulfilling the guru’s wishes. When you are talking to the people, workers, it is like that.

Wow, wow, wow. Then you can realize how you are most fortunate. Otherwise you think you are just given work, work, work. …

Hear more from Rinpoche on following the guru and the path to enlightenment in this 12-minute video teaching:
https://youtu.be/FWUN-E2N-2M

Colophon: Excerpted from Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching in Madrid, Spain, October 28, 2018. Simultaneously transcribed by Ven. Joan Nicell. Lightly edited by Laura Miller, July 2019. (Complete unedited transcript here.)

Find complete videos of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent teachings, including teachings from the May-June 2019 Vajrayogini retreat at Institut Vajra Yogini in France:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/

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 during the November Course, Kopan Monastery, December 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

During the 2018 November Course at Kopan Monastery, Lama Zopa Rinpoche outlined how to reach enlightenment based on the lamrim and the importance of studying it. Rinpoche emphasized that merely knowing the lamrim is not enough; it needs to be applied in daily life. Here’s an excerpt from Rinpoche’s teachings.

Practice mindfulness and the three principal aspects of the path to enlightenment—renunciation, bodhichitta, and right view. Then everything done with renunciation becomes the cause of liberation and does not become the cause of samsara. Then everything done with bodhichitta becomes the cause of enlightenment. Then with right view, everything becomes a remedy to samsara, a remedy to ignorance, which is the root of all your suffering, your samsara, the root of all your sufferings of samsara. It eliminates that; that’s what you need.

If you don’t like suffering, you have to put in effort to actualize emptiness, if you don’t like suffering. If you don’t like depression, if you don’t like any suffering, even diarrhea, whatever you don’t like, then you need to meditate on emptiness, and in particular you have to put effort into realizing emptiness. Study emptiness, all the extensive philosophy teachings, then lamrim, the essence, the short teachings, very important teachings.

You need to not only study—you leave it up to the intellect, you leave it up to the tape recorder, you invest so much information, you put in a tape recorder or computer—not like that. You invest in your brain so much information, but no practice, you only discuss, only to be an important professor—not like that. You need to actualize. So everything becomes practice, and through practice, you actualize. Everything becomes the antidote to your samsara, to your ignorance, which is the root of your samsara. So it eliminates the root of oceans of suffering of samsara. That’s what you need. If you don’t like suffering, you need to put effort in that. It’s extremely worthwhile.

Not only that, not only to free yourself from oceans of suffering of samsara, not only that, but with the help of bodhichitta, you collect inconceivable, inconceivable, inconceivable merits, with that support. Then with the wisdom realizing emptiness, you directly cease the obscuration, not only gross but subtle obscuration. Then you achieve enlightenment for sentient beings, and you are able to liberate all sentient beings from oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring everyone to buddhahood.

If you don’t like suffering, if you have problems—a relationship problem, a problem with the family, with the husband, with the wife or children, with friends, whatever—you should know that. The antidote—to be free from the suffering of samsara—you need to be free from delusion and karma; you need to be free from ignorance, the root of samsara. So you need to meditate on emptiness. That is what you need.  

Otherwise, your problems have no end. Then you rely on psychology. It has no end, relying on psychology or psychiatry. It has no end. Your going to hospital has no end; it’s endless. Your going to hospital, having an operation on your brain, it’s endless. It becomes endless. That is the nature of samsara.

When you have problems, think: “Oh, this is a sign that I’m in samsara. This shows me. This proves it to me. It is sign that I’m in samsara. So, oh, I need to be free from samsara, so then I should practice Dharma.” It should have that as a conclusion.

The conclusion you should come to is that. To actualize Dharma, the heart of Buddhadharma—renunciation, bodhichitta, right view—you should come to the conclusion to practice lamrim. You should come to that conclusion, then that is the best.

You have something to do that is most worthwhile for you and every sentient being—every hell being, they are numberless, for everyone, to benefit every ant, every fish, every chicken, every goat, sheep, what we eat, to benefit every mosquito, every small ant, small flies, so tiny, but numberless, to everyone, to benefit, especially with bodhichitta, then, every human being, every sura being, every asura being, every intermediate state being. Then instead of depression, you have so much happiness in life, because you know what to do, you know what you should do. You know the meaning of life!

Watch the 24-minute video of Rinpoche teaching at Kopan Monastery from which this excerpt is taken:
https://youtu.be/t1_k3Ifj85U

Colophon: Excerpted from Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, December 12, 2018. Simultaneously transcribed by Ven. Joan Nicell. Lightly edited by Laura Miller, July 2019. (Complete unedited transcript here.)

Find complete videos of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent teachings, including teachings from the May-June 2019 Vajrayogini retreat at Institut Vajra Yogini in France:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/

Visit Kopan Monastery’s website to learn more about the monastery and the lamrim courses offered there. Registration for this year’s November Course, scheduled for November 17–December 17, opens August 13:
https://kopanmonastery.com/

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 an event organized by Gendun Drupa Center, Martigny, Switzerland, November 2018. Photo by Harald Weichhart.

During teachings in Switzerland in 2018, Lama Zopa Rinpoche taught on the importance of generating patience and creating happiness for others, captured in this excerpt and video clip:

Even if you don’t believe in reincarnation and karma, even those who are listening for the first time, if you practice patience, if there is no anger from your side, that brings so much happiness to you as you live life, and to your family, to society, to the country, and into the world.

You can bring so much happiness, peace, into the world. I heard that the First World War began with one person. It actually started with one person. If you have influence and power, it becomes like that. So it stops when it does not happen like that, when you practice patience. This is so important.

Even if the other person doesn’t practice patience, when you practice patience it brings so much happiness to the other person. You have to understand. It creates so much peace in the family. If you can do that, then you can bring peace into the world. In a big way, you can bring peace into the world.

As I mentioned the first First World War started with one person. So it’s like that, even if you don’t believe in reincarnation and karma. It’s so important to understand this.

Children in schools, primary schools, need this education in how to practice patience. How much peace there is in the future will depend on the present day children, what kind of education they get. Whether the future will be full of wars and killing each other or more peaceful depends especially on the present day children. When we are all dead, it depends on the present day children and their education.

If they have sangpo, holy education, if they have positive education, good education, that stops harm to others and harm to themselves—making their life black, nonvirtue, suffering, always confused, and causing others so much suffering, making suffering in the world, making so much suffering in the world. You make so much suffering for your family, your society, your country, your world. So much depends on good education, a good heart.

Even if you don’t believe in reincarnation and karma, you need compassion and loving kindness for others—for insects, even ants, not only for people. You can see that nobody wants suffering, even the ants. Nobody wants suffering; everybody wants happiness.

Therefore, if you think about your own happiness, if you have concern for yourself, then don’t harm others! In that case, you don’t harm! If you harm others, of course, that is the cause. And the result is that others harm you.

So if you get angry or you say some bad words to others, immediately you hear bad words from others directed at you. You create the target. You say bad words to others; you hear others say bad words to you. Immediately you get the arrow. So much of life is like that.

If you want happiness for yourself, don’t harm others. With body, speech, and mind, don’t harm others. If you want happiness, cause happiness for others, which will cause your happiness, benefit you, help you; others will cause happiness for you. From the karma, from the action, you can cause happiness for others. From that action, that karma, the result is you will get happiness from others. They will cause you happiness. So concerning your happiness, it’s like that. That is the correct way. We always have to keep the attention on that.

We need to get education of that in schools. We need to learn that. We always need to keep the awareness of that. But the best, of course, is to live life for others, free others from suffering. Live life to cause happiness for others—all the different levels of happiness up to enlightenment. …

Watch the teaching “The Best Way to Live Your Life,” from which this excerpt is taken:
https://youtu.be/m_titxURGec

Colophon: Excerpted from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings in Martigny, Switzerland, November 16, 2018. Simultaneously transcribed by Ven. Joan Nicell. Lightly edited by Laura Miller, June 2019.

Find complete videos of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent teachings, including teachings from the May-June 2019 Vajrayogini retreat at Institut Vajra Yogini in France:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/

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 enjoying a park in Madrid, Spain, April 2019. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche taught on how everything we receive, even the motivation of bodhichitta, comes through the kindness of other sentient beings during teachings given at Amitabha Buddhist Centre in Singapore in September 2018. Lama Zopa Rinpoche explained why and how all happiness comes from good karma and how good karma comes from the buddhas. He continued by explaining how we can stop rebirth in the lower realms and how the insight on the kindness of all sentient beings makes us want to repay their kindness. Here’s an excerpt from the teaching:

What makes life most beneficial to numberless sentient beings, the happiest life, is bodhichitta, living life with bodhichitta—the happiest life, no regret now and no regret in the future. It’s the happiest life, if you want to know.

With bodhichitta when you get sick, you are sick for sentient beings. You are so happy, unbelievably happy, even [if you have] cancer. Having sickness for sentient beings—with bodhichitta you are dying, dying for sentient beings—you are so happy. Anything, whatever happens to you, incurable disease, whatever, you are so happy; you experience it for sentient beings. It is the best, best life. So like that.

Whatever you are doing, you do for numberless sentient beings, including not only those who are helping you, even for those who don’t do harm or don’t help, even a stranger. When you generate bodhichitta, it is for everyone. There is no partisanship—you do if for some sentient beings, but some sentient beings you hate and you don’t do it for them. No, you do for everyone, so it is fantastic.

If you live life with bodhichitta, then you see that whatever happens to your life, it is for sentient beings—even if you have cancer, it is for sentient beings; even if you have health, it is for sentient beings; even if you have short life, it is for sentient beings; even if you have a long life it is for sentient beings—everything. [Living life with bodhichitta creates a] most happy, most happy life. Even if you have constant problems in this life, a difficult life, it is for sentient beings. There is nothing for you; it is all for sentient beings, numberless sentient beings, including your friends, strangers, enemies, everyone. It is really wonderful—wow, wow, wow, most wonderful life.

So, you see, there is incredible happiness. Your mind is always full of happiness, nothing involved with self-cherishing thoughts—only me, me, me. No, there is no problem with that, even though from beginningless rebirths, it has been like this—me, me, me, day and night, me, me, me, When I can be happy?, When I can be happy?, When I can be free from problems?—with the self-cherishing thought trying to achieve happiness for yourself. From beginningless rebirths, today is not the first time. We have been doing this from beginningless rebirths, still not complete, still not, so like that. …

Watch the teaching from which this excerpt is taken:
https://youtu.be/WRgkM2NVtUo

Colophon: Excerpted from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings in Singapore, September 19, 2018. Simultaneously transcribed by Ven. Joan Nicell. Lightly edited by Laura Miller, June 2019.

Find more video of Rinpoche teaching at Amitabha Buddhist Centre in Singapore:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/amitabha-buddhist-center-2018/

Watch recorded video of Rinpoche’s recent teachings from the Vajrayogini retreat at Institut Vajra Yogini in France:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/vajrayogini-retreat-2019/

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 Osel Ling Centro de Retiros, Spain, May 2019. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered this advice on the practice of guru devotion:

Take Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, for example: even after he became a buddha, still some people saw him as having mistakes. Also, Asanga saw a wounded dog and not Maitreya Buddha; and Getsul Tsembulwa saw a lady full of leprosy, but later saw her as Dorje Phagmo. Then there is the enlightened being, Shavaripa, the author of the praise to Six-Arm Mahakala that we recite. Normally he was seen as a hunter, killing animals, when actually he was liberating the animals and sending them to the pure land. In reality Marpa was an enlightened being, but he appeared like a farmer with a wife and children. His head wrapped in cloth; he looked like a very ordinary being, drinking chang and so forth. Then there is Tilopa, who was a great yogi, the actual Vajradhara, but people in the area saw him as a beggar who was burning fish alive and eating them. Then there are also Naropa and Milarepa. An ordinary person would see Milarepa as very skinny and pathetic. There are many other stories as well.

If you don’t know how to view the guru correctly, it affects you for so many lifetimes, and it can really endanger you, so that you don’t find a guru, a virtuous friend, for eons.

It’s important to relate to the Buddha’s teachings on karma, the results of virtuous and non-virtuous actions. The greatest fear and the biggest mistakes you can make in your life are in regard to making mistakes in regard to the virtuous friend.

Of course, by coming to know all the points, you can then come to regret any mistakes you have done. This is positive regret, and confessing to the guru then causes you to achieve enlightenment. If the guru is not alive, you then confess to his relics or even his clothing or to his close disciples. Also, if you haven’t done a deity retreat and so can’t do self-initiation, you can do many tsog offerings.

The main way to understand how to correctly follow the virtuous friend is to read that section of the lamrim, especially the part of the nine attitudes of guru devotion. By studying this well before you look for a guru, you will then know how to act and how to think. Otherwise, if you haven’t studied this and then take a guru, it can be very dangerous. But if you do it correctly, it is most beneficial.

It is mentioned so much in the sutras and tantras to analyze well before making the connection to a guru. You need to analyze the qualities of the guru and then know how to think about the guru. There are ten qualities of the guru from Do De Gyen, Maitreya Buddha’s teachings, and five qualities of the guru who reveals the Mahayana teachings. If the guru doesn’t have all ten qualities, then from those ten, they can have eight or four qualities.

It is so important to check first before you make the connection, but it may be that you then spend your whole life checking the guru so that you then you don’t find a guru in that life. That is another extreme that could happen. You then lose this most precious human life, where you can choose to abandon the lower realms and to achieve enlightenment, to be free from samsara and to achieve nirvana, to not be reborn in the lower realms and to receive a deva or human body in the next life or even to achieve a pure land. In this life you have great choice in regard to what you can achieve. Every year, month, week, day, and even hour, you have so much choice. You can totally lose this most precious human rebirth, and it’s not sure for how long you will lose it: it could be for eons that you don’t get another human rebirth. That is also a great danger.

It looks like you almost have to have omniscient mind before you make a guru-disciple connection and receive teachings. It’s like, before finding a guru, you first have to have omniscient mind to be able to see all the past and all the future or you have to have clairvoyance to see some of the past and some of the future. There will then be no problems: you won’t see mistakes and not see the guru as buddha. According to the present situation in the world, particularly in the West, it starts to look like you need attainment of the first or second bhumi before finding a guru.

Basically, it depends on your karma. Once you find a guru, once you have made the connection, you are supposed to practice correctly, not under the influence of somebody else, of people who you like. You have to CORRECTLY PRACTICE according to what is explained in the sutras and tantras, according to what was originally explained in the Buddha’s texts and then explained in the texts of the enlightened beings, the great yogis and pandits.

By following the present situation in the world, particularly in the West, you lose the root of your path to enlightenment: correctly following the virtuous friend. You then don’t follow correctly what is explained by those great yogis and pandits and other enlightened beings.

Especially in the West, it seems that people look for a guru the way they look for a boyfriend. Of course, looking for a boyfriend is a cause of samsara, but looking for a guru is the cause of nirvana and enlightenment. But in the West it seems it is the same as looking for a boyfriend, which is a cause of samsara.

If you correctly practice as explained in the sutras and tantras, that causes you, in this life and in future lives, to again find a virtuous friend, and from your side you are able to see them as a perfect guru. It creates the cause for that.

Therefore, it is very important to create the cause to find a perfect guru and to be able to see them as a perfect guru. Remember that even with Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, some people still saw him as making mistakes and having faults.

My suggestion is that before you look for a guru or make a connection to a guru, study well what is mentioned in the lamrim as to how to correctly follow and devote to the virtuous friend. Also study how it is explained in the sutras and tantras. Then you will have the understanding of how to correctly devote yourself. Otherwise, if you make mistakes with the guru, it’s like jumping into quicksand. Not only that, it is like jumping into a huge fire with red-hot red flames and being in the middle of that. This is just an example.

As mentioned in the lamrim text The Essential Nectar:

The purpose that is difficult to accomplish
In tens of millions of eons or even numberless eons,
Enlightenment, is given by the guru in this life in the quarrelling time (such a difficult time)
To such thick-skulled minds.

My suggestion is first read well what is mentioned in the lamrim and in the sutras and tantras on how to correctly follow the virtuous friend. Read what is explained by Lama Tsongkhapa and also by many other lamas, such as what Shabkar Tsogdruk Rangdrol, the non-sectarian lama, explained on the nine attitudes of guru devotion. Read and study well about how to correctly follow the virtuous friend, and with that understanding, you then look for a guru. Also study well advice from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. If you study the scriptures well for two or three years, you will then definitely have a better understanding and you will want to follow a guru. You then request someone to be your guru and follow them.

You may not find any mistakes after three years, but then maybe you still have to check further, the whole life, and still that would not be enough. Even if you live for a hundred years, it may not be enough. Maybe you would still find mistakes much, much later than a hundred years, a thousand years or even longer.

The main thing is, from your side, knowing how to correctly follow the guru. You can understand this by reading and studying well what is explained in the lamrim, which is condensed from the sutras and tantras. Then, from your side, follow the guru correctly. That is the most important thing. Otherwise, you might have to wait 100,000 lifetimes or 100,000 eons, and still you might find mistakes.

The five qualities of a perfect guru are 1) having great compassion and 2) having stable devotion to the Mahayana teachings. This means that whatever conditions happen, there is no change in devotion to the Mahayana teachings; it remains stable. Otherwise, sometimes conditions are very good and sometimes they are very bad, and you then lose faith in the Mahayana teachings and think that they are not true.

I think this is like what happened when Tibet was lost to China. At that time people who hadn’t thought about karma didn’t understand that karma is created from beginningless rebirths and there are many karmas that are still not finished, and that this is the ongoing result. When something bad happens to them or their country, people lose faith in the Mahayana teachings or in Buddhism. Even when an earthquake happens, some people lose faith, thinking that Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha didn’t help them at all, and then give up Buddhism. There was one family in Malaysia who had had many different lamas stay at their house. When their son suddenly died, they thought that Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha didn’t help them and then threw all their Buddha statues on the floor. The mistake was that they didn’t think about individual karma, their own karma and their son’s karma. There was the karma for their son to die, even if it was an untimely death.

By realizing the correct view of emptiness (the Prasangika view), by developing direct perception of emptiness, you then remove the seed of delusion and karma, which is the cause of samsara. It is only then, when you have actualized the path, that are you free from death. Without actualizing the path, how can you be free from death, rebirth, old age, and sickness?

The other qualities of a perfect guru are: 3) understanding well the particular teachings of the vehicles and at least the sutras. (This means the lesser vehicle and great vehicle teachings; the sutras and tantras.) 4) Being wise in bringing disciples, the objects to be subdued, into the graduated path. 5) Having subdued senses through having abstained from vices of the three doors (body, speech, and mind).

In very simplified terms (and not relating to tantra), the qualities of a guru are: someone who cherishes others more than self; someone who emphasizes nirvana and liberation over being in samsara (samsara is to be abandoned and nirvana is to be achieved); and someone who emphasizes the next life’s and future lives’ happiness over this life’s happiness (this life is to be renounced and future lives’ happiness is to be obtained). That is a simple definition of the qualities of a guru.

From Gyu Trul Darwa:

There are also qualities of a disciple, a receiver of initiation for practitioners of tantra, such as having a straight mind, which means not following something that you like according to attachment and personal interests. The mind is straight and not curved, which means following one’s own interests, attachment and self-cherishing thought. Then, the disciple should be one who likes virtue and meditation; always has devotion and respect to the guru; and always makes offerings to the enlightened deity.

This is like the life of the initiation. It is something you cherish very much and protect well, with clean samaya vows, by not giving up all the transmigratory beings, which includes one’s enemies, friends, and strangers, and having bodhichitta. Even if one doesn’t have actual realization of bodhichitta, at least one should have a good heart.

The disciple should not have a two-pointed mind, but have a mind only in the nature of the secret mantra. The disciple should also have unwavering devotion to the guru-deity and the holy Dharma.

These four things definitely support the generation of the path in a disciple’s mind. If you are missing one of these, then you can’t achieve tantric realizations.

It is said in the tantric text Dom Jung: “If you desire to achieve sublime realization, even if you have to completely give up your life, or even at the time of death, still always protect your samaya.”

It is said in the tantric text Semo Lay: “If one directly attempts the practice for hundreds of eons, with these four things, one won’t achieve realizations: not generating bodhichitta, having doubts about tantra, not acting according to the guru’s advice, having no pure mind (devotional mind).

Scribed by Holly Ansett, edited by Ailsa Cameron, Institut Vajra Yogini, France, May 29, 2019.

FPMT Education Services has created a lamrim resource page where students may find advice and materials to support their practice:
https://fpmt.org/education/prayers-and-practice-materials/lam-rim/

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.

If you wish to read FPMT International Office’s May 24 update regarding Dagri Rinpoche, it is available here.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche felt strongly that it was important for him to offer the following advice to the students of Dagri Rinpoche out of concern for their guru-disciple relationship. Rinpoche also offered advice on guru devotion to all students.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Adelaide, Australia, May 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Many people who have studied Dharma know this, but other people may not know this: In the Lesser Vehicle teachings the ten non-virtues cannot become virtue by depending on the motivation. If the action happened, then it is just non-virtue. But it’s different in Mahayana Buddhism if the three non-virtuous actions of the body and the four non-virtuous actions of the speech are done with unbelievably strong compassion. For example, if you prefer to be born in hell yourself instead of another sentient being being born in hell, you will not be born in hell. You are able to choose like that. For bodhisattvas, to achieve the blissful state of peace, or nirvana, for oneself is extremely dirty. In the texts it says that it is like spit or snot thrown away on a road. I use the example of used toilet paper with kaka on it—you immediately throw it away. It is like that for a bodhisattva’s holy mind. But to be born in hell for sentient being, to be able to save sentient beings, is like a swan entering a pond. The swan is so happy to enter the pond. It is the most happy, most exciting thing; it is what they really want. So, it is like that for a bodhisattva’s holy mind. That is the example given in the texts.

There is the story of the bodhisattva captain. A long time ago, way back when Shakyamuni Buddha was a bodhisattva, he was the captain of a ship. One man on the ship, who was short and carrying a spear, wanted to kill the 500 other people on the boat. Knowing this, the bodhisattva captain felt unbelievable compassion because the man would then be reborn in the lower realms and suffer for eons. The bodhisattva captain really wanted to be born in hell himself and not the man. So, with that mind of unbelievable compassion, wanting to protect the man from negative karma and from many eons of suffering in the hells, he then killed the man. The effect of doing that, because it was done with such unbelievable compassion, was to cause the bodhisattva captain to be 100,000 eons closer to enlightenment and to being free from samsara. It became an unbelievable purification. This was because the motivation of unbearable compassion made the action not only become Dharma but the cause of enlightenment.

Then the Vajrayogini commentary tells how Nagpo Chopa, the guru, was going to practice tantric conduct (the last practice just before enlightenment) in a place called Oddiyana, near Buxa, in India, where I lived for eight years. Waiting near a big river was a woman who had leprosy, with pus and blood coming out of her. She was totally, unbelievably dirty. The leper woman asked Nagpo Chopa to please carry her on his back across the river, but he didn’t answer her and just went straight across the river. After some time his disciple, Getsul Tsembulwa, who was not a full bhikshu, came by, and she asked him to carry her across to the other side of the river. When he saw her, unbelievable compassion immediately arose within him. Without any thought of the contagious disease or of being a monk, but with only unbelievable compassion, he immediately carried her on his back across the river. When he reached the middle of the river, his heavy negative karma that prevented him from seeing her as the enlightened being Dorje Phagmo and made him only see her as a terrible, dirty, and sick was purified. That ordinary appearance finished because his negative karma was purified. The mind that projected that ordinary appearance was gone, purified. So, that woman was Dorje Phagmo, who then took Getsul Tsembulwa to the pure land of Dagpa Kachoe (the Vajrayogini pure land), in his same body, without his needing to die first. Since one definitely becomes enlightened there in Dagpa Kachoe, he probably became enlightened earlier than his guru, Nagpo Chopa. This was because he generated unbelievable compassion.

Another example is from Asanga’s life story—many people know this story. Asanga spent twelve years in retreat trying to achieve Maitreya Buddha. He left after every three years of retreat, and different conditions happened that inspired him each time to go back into retreat. One time he saw a bird flying in and out of a cave to its nest. The bird’s wings were so soft, but where they touched the rock was being worn down. That inspired Asanga so much that he thought he would go back into retreat to try to achieve Maitreya Buddha. When he came down after another three years, he saw a thread being used to cut hard rock. Over time they were able to cut the rock with just a tiny thread. Again that inspired him to go back into retreat. Three years later when he came down, he saw water dripping onto a rock—one, two, three drops—and the rock was being worn down, with a hole starting to form. This again inspired him and he went back into retreat.

Still nothing happened, and after three years he again left the retreat. As he was walking down the road, he saw a wounded dog, the lower part of whose body was totally full of maggots. Asanga cut a piece of flesh off his thigh to put the maggots on, so they had something to eat. Since he didn’t want to harm the maggots by picking them up with his fingers, he closed his eyes and stretched out his tongue, intending to pick them up with his tongue. But he could not touch them. When he opened his eyes, there was no longer a wounded dog but Maitreya Buddha.

Asanga then complained, saying, “Why didn’t I see you during the retreat?” Maitreya Buddha said, “I was there with you. Look at your spit on my robes.” To prove it, he showed the marks on his robes where Asanga had spat. Asanga then requested teachings, and Maitreya Buddha took him to Tushita pure land, Yiga Chozin, and gave him the five divisions of teachings (Jangchub Denma). One morning in Tushita pure land is equal to fifty human years. Asanga then came back and wrote the five commentaries. From that, so many people have done listening, reflecting, and meditation, achieved the path and become enlightened. (Of course, later in Tibet, Lama Atisha wrote The Lamp of the Path to Enlightenment, which again so many people in the world have studied and thus subdued their mind and achieved enlightenment. This came from Nalanda in India.)

In the great monasteries in Tibet, people studied and took these teachings for many years. Then nowadays many nuns in nunneries, including the Kopan nunnery, have also been studying these teachings. They are all unbelievably fortunate to learn Buddhadharma in such an extensive way. They are very fortunate to learn how to generate the path and how to achieve enlightenment.

These are just a few examples of the results of Asanga’s great compassion. All these benefits received by so many sentient beings, which we have also been receiving, came from Asanga’s great compassion.

We have to have expansive knowledge and understanding. For example, according to the Mahayana, while Guru Shakyamuni Buddha was showing enlightenment in this world, in another world he was showing descending from Tushita; then at the same time, in another world he was showing conception; then in other worlds he was showing teaching the Dharma or subduing the maras. All these different things were happening at the same time. But according to Theravadin Buddhism, when Buddha showed enlightenment in Bodhgaya, it was the first time he was enlightened.

Even though there is need for laws in a country and vinaya rules in a monastery, it is your own practice to subdue your mind. Buddha said: “Do not commit any unwholesome action; engage in wholesome actions; and subdue your own mind.” If subduing your own mind is missing, then you are not practicing real Buddhism. Externally it looks like you are practicing Buddhism, but inwardly you are not practicing Buddhism.

There are similar cases in the monasteries, where there is the study of the major philosophical texts: you study Dharma outwardly, but are not studying Dharma inwardly. Therefore, you don’t find happiness from Buddhism. You have the same problems in your mind that you had even before you met Buddhism—maybe even worse problems. You then spend your life creating negative karma by criticizing others all the time. I wonder why Buddha said, “Subdue your own mind”?

In the practices of Sangha there is a practice called ge jong je sho she. It means that if somebody is angry with you, you don’t get angry back; if somebody shouts at and scolds you, you don’t do that back; if somebody beats you, you don’t beat them back; if somebody provokes you, you don’t provoke them back. Otherwise, it is like there is no purpose in Buddha teaching us to subdue our own mind.

My greatest interest is: Are there sentient beings who have been pure from beginningless rebirths, with no disturbing-thought obscurations and no subtle obscurations? Are there any sentient beings like this other than my gurus? Are there any sentient beings whose minds have been totally pure, with no mistakes, no disturbing-thought obscurations and no subtle obscurations, from beginningless rebirth? That is what I am wondering.

No matter what people in the world say to criticize Dagri Rinpoche, I keep my mind in the understanding that this is a holy being. I don’t become like a cow with a rope tied through its nose that is led around by people and has to go wherever the people pull it. Even though I am extremely ignorant of the world and I have no understanding of Dharma, I have this slight wisdom and I stay with that. This is a holy being, not an ordinary being, as I mentioned before.

Somebody who practices patience and has unbelievable compassion in return to anger or harm receives unbelievable benefits from that, up to enlightenment. Those who don’t practice holy Dharma get angry. You can see that it totally depends on the person’s mind, on what label the person puts on that: harm or benefit, negative or positive. You can use it whichever way you like, for delusion or not. Those actions make some people so happy; even for attachment it makes them so happy. Some people who are not interested at that time, who don’t like it, get angry back. Even in regard to delusions, it is like that. It depends on whether you like or dislike something. If you like it, then you are so happy; if you dislike it, then you get so angry. Even with delusion it depends on which label you put, like or dislike. So, it comes from the person’s mind. So much depends on the mind of the person, of the perceiver, who judges something as good or bad. It is the same with kaka. For human beings it is something to throw out, but for dogs and even pretas, kaka is what they need, what they enjoy. It is the same with durian. Some people like durian so much, but others hate it. So, it’s up to a person’s karma, and even the same person might like or dislike something at different times.

In regard to investigating, in my understanding, is the investigation of today? Of this year or last year? From his childhood? From when he was conceived in his mother’s womb? Should the investigation be of his past life? In his past life Dagri Rinpoche was Pari Dorje Chang, a very famous lama in Lhasa, and Lama Yeshe’s guru. He gave the oral transmission of the Kangyur in the large monasteries in Tibet. Or should the investigation be of the life before that? Should the investigation be from beginningless rebirths? Then we will be investigating endless samsara. We will have to achieve enlightenment in order to investigate the beginningless rebirths of Dagri Rinpoche. We have to be enlightened; otherwise, we can’t investigate. This is my logic.

Here, it seems that only Rinpoche is wrong and all of us are totally pure, have never engaged in non-virtue. It becomes like that. In Rinpoche’s case, this is all I have to say. I have nothing else to say.

This case doesn’t apply only to Dagri Rinpoche. People bring up everyone in the world as having mistakes. People even criticize His Holiness the Dalai Lama, because His Holiness gives advice on the shortcomings of following dolgyal, which some people believe is a Dharma protector. This advice comes from His Holiness’s own experience, over a long time, over years and years. Others hide the mistakes and don’t reveal them publically because people will criticize them. But His Holiness has unbelievable compassion, so instead of hiding the truth he revealed it. His Holiness showed what is true and what is false, what is harmful and what is helpful.

Not only His Holiness the Dalai Lama but many high lamas in Tibet stopped the practice of dolgyal, such as:

1. 54th Ganden Tripa Trichen Ngawang Chogden – Regent of Lama Tsongkhapa, he advised to not have it in the constitution of the monastery, to not practice it.
2. Purchog Ngawang Jampa (an incarnation of Maitreya Buddha and a great Sera lama)
3. 8th Dalai Lama Gyalwa Jampa Gyatso
4. Yongdzin Yeshe Gyaltsen
5. Thuken Chokyi Nyima
6. Changkya Rolpai Dorje
7. Yangchen Drupai Dorje
8. Ngulchu Dharmabhadra
9. Lama Chosang Chokyi Nyingje
10. Dodrup Jigme Tenpai Nyima
11. Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo
12. 8th Panchen Lama Tenpai Wangchuk

And there are many others, great lamas who brought extensive benefit to sentient beings and the teachings of Buddha, like the sun and moon in the world. All these great lamas advised to not do the practice, even putting it in the constitution of the monasteries. It’s not just the view of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who protects us sentient beings and guides us with so much compassion.

It’s very important to study the advice of those lamas, which was given a long time ago in Tibet. In general, people don’t have much idea. They think it’s only His Holiness. Then, depending on what they like and don’t like, they then criticize His Holiness. But they don’t follow the analysis of whether it is a harmful thing or a helpful thing. They don’t check that.

Then, in the twenty-first century, those, such as myself, with very, very obscured ordinary minds, who are very ignorant and without the wisdom to analyze things, should then say that great enlightened Heruka Kyabje Pabongka; Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, my root guru; Kyabje Zong Rinpoche; Geshe Rabten and Lama Yeshe didn’t practice dolgyal, but showed the aspect of practicing dolgyal. In the section on perfectly following the guru, there is the word “tsul,” which means showed the aspect. They showed the aspect; they acted that way, but it was not real. So, for me and the twenty-first century sentient beings, whose minds are so obscured and so ignorant, with no wisdom to check whether it is helpful or harmful, they appeared to practice, but actually they did not practice. It was an act.

When Bodhisattva Meaningful to Behold asked Buddha, “Now we are guided by you, but in the future who will guide us?” Buddha replied, “Hi, I will reveal birth, old age, sickness, and death in order to ripen the minds of sentient beings.”

In brief, I mention this quotation of what Buddha said. Even arhats, who are free from delusion and karma and samsara, do not have birth, old age, sickness, and death, so how is it possible for Buddha to have them?

I am talking about this on the basis of not even having met Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo, but I have read a lot of his teachings, so on the basis of that, from my side, they are all Buddha.

So, it depends on what you like and don’t like. In this instance, people criticize His Holiness the Dalai Lama. If it is opposite to what you like, then you criticize. People do that. Even Buddha was criticized by the Hindu followers.

Then it becomes that nobody is enlightened. It comes to that point. Then the whole of the teachings are not true. Even nowadays, even recently, in the past years, so many beings achieved seeing the guru as buddha, renunciation, bodhichitta, right view, and tantric realizations of the generation and completion stages. It is happening even now. Even we ourselves find that when we read lamrim our problems go away; our mind becomes peaceful. You can see the logic of what Buddha said: “Mighty Ones, Bhikshus, learned ones, check my teachings like one examines gold by burning, cutting, and rubbing. One then sees refined gold. Take the teachings in the same way, not by blind faith.”

So, that is not only for beginners, for Westerners in particular, but includes even learned lamas and geshes with many disciples. In Tibet, many valid high lamas, such as Kyabje Ling Rinpoche and many others, even though they were followers of and extremely devoted to Pabongka Rinpoche, did not practice dolgyal.

I deeply apologize if my previous advice caused any unhappiness. Whichever way you speak, it causes unhappiness to different people. Of course, in the world, even if somebody does a really positive thing, there are people who take that as very negative; then somebody does a very negative thing and some people take it as very positive. So, it is like that. I want to say that I am deeply sorry about all the people who got hurt from Rinpoche’s holy actions.

So, this is additional clarification of my previous advice to students of Dagri Rinpoche.

Thank you very much for your understanding, and thank you very much for spending your precious human life and precious time reading my blah, blah, blah.

Lama Zopa

Institut Vajra Yogini, Marzens, France

Scribed by Holly Ansett, May 19-21, 2019; edited by Ailsa Cameron.

Find Rinpoche’s May 14 advice for students of Dagri Rinpoche here.

FPMT International Office’s updates regarding Dagri Rinpoche are available here:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/announcements/updates-regarding-dagri-rinpoche/

If you wish to read FPMT International Office’s updates regarding Dagri Rinpoche, they can be found here.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche felt strongly that it was important for him to offer the following advice to the students of Dagri Rinpoche out of concern for their guru-disciple relationship. Rinpoche also offered advice on guru devotion to all students.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Centro La Sabiduría de Nagarjuna, Bilbao, Spain, May 6, 2019. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

From my understanding, in my view and according to my mind, Dagri Rinpoche is a very positive, holy being—definitely not an ordinary person.

One night a very long time ago at Tushita in Dharamsala, Dagri Rinpoche told me that he had a dream that he visited the pure land of Lama Tsongkhapa (Yiga Chozin). He was saying how unbelievably, unbelievably wonderful it was, with all the beautiful enjoyments and view, wow, wow, wow!

Then in Sera Je Monastery, when I was having dinner at his house, he told me another story. After he recited Rinjung Gyatso mantras, he led the pujas of the Hayagriva group in Sera Je. During the puja he himself was a huge Hayagriva and all the monks were very little. When he was telling me this, his way of expressing it was bringing himself down, saying that maybe he was hallucinating. These are just a few stories that I have heard. But this is definitely not an ordinary being, someone scared of death and the lower realms. That is one hundred percent certain. This is according to my personal view, according to my mind.

Therefore, I want to tell the students who have received initiations and teachings from Dagri Rinpoche that you should definitely one hundred percent rejoice, no matter what the world says, no matter if some people criticize him. Even after Buddha became enlightened, he showed the aspect of having pain in his foot when a piece of wood went through it. Buddha said that the suffering was the result of sexual misconduct with a woman in one of his past lives, a long time ago. Of course, even arhats, who haven’t achieved the five Mahayana paths, the ten Bhumis or the tantric path, don’t have pain. They are free from samsara, since they are totally free from delusions and karma, the cause of samsara. How is it possible for someone to experience pain, rebirth, old age, and death if they have totally ceased the cause of suffering? It then becomes that Buddha is not true and Buddha’s teachings are not true. It becomes like that. Numberless beings have become enlightened: yogi-pandits such as Saraha, Tilopa and Naropa, and many beings from all four sects of Tibetan Buddhism, including Padmasambhava and other Nyingma lamas, Marpa and Milarepa, the five great highly attained Sakya Lamas, Lama Tsongkhapa himself, and many others in the Gelug tradition. With this reasoning everything becomes not true.

Buddha showed the aspect of a piece of wood going into his foot and said that a long time ago, in one of his past lives, he committed sexual misconduct with a woman. He did this to show the karma to the disciples, to the sentient beings who are the objects to be subdued. So, Buddha himself showed suffering, even though he didn’t have suffering.

This also includes the present Dalai Lama. You can see that His Holiness the Dalai Lama is all that is explained by Buddha, the great yogi-pandits and Lama Tsongkhapa. You can see that his holy mind possesses all the qualities of the path. His holy mind has all the supreme qualities, all the inexpressible qualities beyond the path, that have been explained in the texts by Buddha and up to the present buddhas’, enlightened ones’, experiences, as well as being unbelievably practical and cherishing others like a mother cherishes her most beloved child. No matter whether someone is rich or poor, educated or uneducated, His Holiness sees everyone in the world as equal and gives the most practical advice. Now, even this would not be true. But here you can see this with your own eyes, so then how could you say that it’s not true. The incredible qualities of His Holiness’s gurus and so many other holy beings that you have seen would also not be true. You would then have to say that there are no holy beings. So, these mistakes would arise.

You can see for yourself that if you practice Buddhism—lamrim, for example—your mind has greater and greater peace and becomes more and more holy. How can you then say that even that doesn’t happen? It’s the same as saying that everything you did, everything you experienced, is a hallucination. Of course, this is not related to the view of true existence. The hallucination, in this case, is that nothing exists in mere name: suffering, the cause of suffering, cessation of suffering, the path. Nothing then exists: there’s no hell, no enlightenment, no karma, no samsara, no nirvana.

Then, in the sutra Meeting of the Father and Son, it says, “Buddha works for sentient beings by taking the costume of Indra, Brahmin, sometimes as mara, (but people in the world do not know this). He also shows the conduct, the costume, of a woman. Also, Buddha takes animal forms. There is no attachment but he shows attachment; there is no fear but he shows fear; there is no ignorance but he shows ignorance; there is no craziness but he shows craziness; there is no lameness but he shows being lame. In various aspects, Buddha works for sentient beings and subdues the minds of sentient beings.”

Please understand this. Even enlightened buddhas work for sentient beings like this. So we, including myself, need to see things as positive. From our minds, from our side, we have to try to see the positive side. 

Otherwise, it means you don’t need to meditate, you don’t need to practice Dharma, from your side. Otherwise, why do you need to meditate? Why do you need to practice Dharma? Without needing to put effort from your side, you expect everything outside to be positive. To be able to see the Guru is numberless past, present, and future buddhas, to be able to realize that, you have to put effort from your own side.

That’s why Lama Tsongkhapa said in The Foundation of All Good Qualities:

The foundation of all good qualities is the kind and perfect, pure Guru;
Correct devotion to him is the root of the path.
By clearly seeing this and applying great effort,
Please bless me to rely upon him with great respect.

The verse says: “The kind, perfect guru is the basis of all good qualities and correctly following the virtuous friend is the root of the path to enlightenment. By seeing well, which means seeing the guru as numberless past, present, future buddhas, WITH MUCH EFFORT, please grant me blessings to be able to follow the guru with great devotion and respect.” So, this means from your own side, with great effort. Lama Tsongkhapa said this from his own experience.

Since we (myself, for example) don’t have that understanding, we expect that we don’t have to do anything from our side. We only expect to see the guru’s qualities, to see the guru as pure, as the essence of buddha, from outside. It doesn’t happen like this.

Even if you saw the person before as full of mistakes, after you make a Dharma connection with them, you need to practice the root of path to enlightenment: correctly following the virtuous friend. By training your mind in that, then you are able to see that is buddha, which means one who has totally ceased the gross and subtle obscurations and completed all the qualities. You then realize the root of the path to enlightenment: correctly following the virtuous friend. From there, you then actualize the graduated paths of the lower capable being, the middle capable being and then the higher capable being. Bodhichitta and then tantric realizations happen easily.

Guru Shakyamuni Buddha was enlightened eons ago, according to Mahayana, according to reality. Gelong Lekpai Garma, Buddha’s attendant, served Buddha for twenty-two years, but he always looked at Buddha as a liar. This was because one time when Buddha was on alms round, a young girl offered a handful of grain in Buddha’s begging bowl. At that time Buddha predicted that from that karma she would become enlightened as Buddha Tseme. Gelong Lekpai Garma thought that was a lie and that Buddha was just flattering her. He thought it was too much: “How is it possible for that to happen from offering one handful of grain?” So, for his whole life he saw Buddha as a liar and as an ordinary being. Buddha was a buddha, but he never saw him as a buddha. He had more faith in his Hindu guru. One time his Hindu guru was sick and Buddha advised his Hindu guru not to eat brown sugar. Gelong Lekpai Garma didn’t believe Buddha, he thought he was lying, so he offered his Hindu guru brown sugar. His Hindu guru died and was reborn as a preta; one time this preta made a sound as Buddha was walking by on a road. When Gelong Lekpai Garma died, he was reborn in the hell realms for eons. It is important to know these stories.

Thank you very much. Have no regrets. The only thing is to enjoy life, which is very short and can be ended at any time.

Thank you very much,

Lama Zopa Rinpoche

May 12, 2019, Lavaur, France. Scribe: Ven. Holly Ansett, edited by Ven. Ailsa Cameron.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche being led to the gompa at O.Sel.Ling Centro de Retiros by center director Anne Wenaas and Ven. Topgye, Spain, May 2019. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrote a benefactor thanking them for their support of a center and explaining a center’s benefits.

I just want to send you these cards and tell you that I highly appreciate your kindness in helping the center. The purpose of the center existing continually is to help sentient beings, and what sentient beings need most is to be free from the oceans of suffering, which is what they have been experiencing from beginningless rebirths. That means to be free from the oceans of samsaric suffering—the sufferings of rebirth, old age, sickness and death, and so forth. This is the suffering of pain. Then there is the suffering of change—all the samsaric pleasures, which cannot continue.

When we achieve enlightenment, that is when Dharma happiness is completed. The nature of samsaric pleasure is suffering. The suffering of pain and the suffering of change come from the third suffering, which is pervasive compounding suffering.

To be free from these three sufferings forever, we need to cease the cause of suffering—delusion and karma. For this we can’t have an operation in the hospital, or have it taken it out by a doctor or take tablets so it goes away. We can’t do that, it’s impossible. The only method is Dharma, the Buddha’s teachings. The centers are for that. That’s why the center is teaching Dharma, providing qualified teachers, translators, a place to practice, to hear the teachings and so many things.

This is a most urgent thing for sentient beings, more urgent than anything else. Not only that, through this it brings sentient beings to buddhahood, the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all realizations. Therefore, the need for the center to exist and to continue is of utmost importance for sentient beings.

By helping the center, you are helping all sentient beings, because then people come to learn Dharma at the center, and to practice bodhichitta, as they do the practice for all sentient beings, to benefit all sentient beings. That is how the center benefits numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless sura beings, numberless asura beings and numberless intermediate state beings.

From Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice “The Center is of Utmost Importance,” posted on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive in December 2018:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/center-utmost-importance

Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent teachings in Madrid, Spain:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/madrid_2019/

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche making prayers at Tso Pema, India, January 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche advised a student who wanted to help the sick and dying.

You don’t have to go [to the hospital] to help them; instead, wherever you stay, you can do the Eight Prayers to Benefit the Dead. Recite a different one, or two, each day, dedicated for them, for example, the “King of Prayers,” the “Prayer of the Virtuous Beginning, Middle and End,” the “Prayer to Be Reborn in Sukhavati,” Shantideva’s “Dedication Prayer,” and so forth. You can do that for them, as well as for every sentient being of the six realms.

Also, every OM MANI PADME HUM mantra you recite, or whatever mantras you do, such as Vajrayogini, you can do for every sentient being, including those who are sick and dying. That is helpful for them. Whatever you practice normally, do for others. Try to live your life for others—for every single sentient being, including every single insect, even the tiniest animals, and every single sura and asura. Whatever you do, try to help and dedicate it to everybody. That is very good.

Sometimes going to see people who are dying, if you don’t really know what helps them, then it can be that it doesn’t help and can even disturb their mind, causing attachment. Even if they regard it as good, actually it harms them by generating attachment. In the West people think attachment is very good, but they don’t know that generating attachment to the other person in reality is not helping but is harming.

Renunciation, bodhichitta, emptiness and correctly following virtuous friend [help those who are dying]. This is just talking from the side of sutra. This helps, otherwise it’s not so good. You have to know what is helping and what is harming. You have to know that. In the West, maybe the person is your enemy, but when that person is dying and you go to see them in hospital, if that person can’t speak, they may die with anger or attachment. So it harms them; it causes them to be reborn in the lower realms. I am using this as an example.

Anyway, for the time being it doesn’t come out to help those people who are dying and in the hospitals. What comes out best is to focus on your preliminary practices, retreats, and to do prayers for those people.

From Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice “How to Help People Who Are Sick and Dying,” posted on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website in December 2018:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/how-help-people-who-are-sick-and-dying

For more advice from Rinpoche on death and dying, please visit our page “Death and Dying: Heart  Practices and Advice”:
https://fpmt.org/death/

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 Madrid, Spain, April 2019. Photo by Alexis Roitmann.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche sent this letter to all the staff at an FPMT center, thanking them for working at the center.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,

My thanks, first of all, that you have taken a human rebirth, from many lifetimes practice, praying, and dedicating to receive a human body and especially a perfect human body, and now being able to practice the Dharma and meet the Mahayana teachings. From that, any practice you do always begins with bodhichitta.

The main purpose of one’s life is to free the numberless sentient beings in each realm from the oceans of samsara suffering and to bring them to Buddhahood—the peerless happiness. So therefore one needs to achieve Buddhahood in order to be able to do the perfect works for the sentient beings, without the slightest mistake.

Any Mahayana practice that you do begins with bodhichitta, to benefit all the sentient beings in the six realms. That means any practice you do with this motivation is helping the numberless sentient beings in every realm, that means every single hell being, hungry ghost, animal, human, sura, and asura in the numberless universes, so all the numberless sentient beings everyone.

The center you are at is not only helping people by giving them the opportunity to come to the center, but also by coming to the center then they find out about all the meditation subjects and the path to enlightenment.

By meeting Buddhism and finding out about meditation and the path to enlightenment, this is what helps them to purify past negative karma, to stop rebirths in the lower realms, by practicing morality, charity, and so forth. This creates the cause for higher rebirths in future lives, not even just for one lifetime. By practicing morality, keeping one precept, practicing charity, then this helps for so many hundreds and thousands of lifetimes. So it’s amazing, amazing the results.

In the Arya Sanghata Sutra the Buddha says, “The benefits of making charity to sentient beings, even the size of a single strand of hair, for eighty eons the result will be unbelievable wealth.”

Therefore in everyday life, practice charity with a healthy mind. I am saying this in a Western way, for those who don’t believe in reincarnation and karma. So then I say, a healthy mind, positive mind. So to practice with a mind without attachment, this is a peaceful mind. A mind with attachment is a disturbed mind, a contaminated mind, contaminated with suffering. So practice charity with a mind without attachment. Whether it is big or small charity, it is always helping, especially if it is to those in need, giving anything. So whatever you can give, this is the most important thing and this is creating a healthy life. From charity comes wealth and success in this life and next lives.

From pure morality, this leads to good rebirth, and being able to meet Dharma and to practice Dharma. Not only that, the next thing is be to free from samsara, by practicing the three higher trainings—the higher training of morality, the higher training of concentration, and the higher training of wisdom.

So now you can see by people coming to the center they learn how to be free from the oceans of samsara suffering. Not just for a few hours or a few days, but forever. Can you imagine?

So no matter how hard it is, it is so worthwhile because you are creating the cause for them to be free from death, free from suffering, free from birth, old age, and sickness, and so forth, to be free from the suffering of depression and dissatisfaction. Even the dissatisfaction of billionaires and zillionaires is worse than the suffering in the hell realms. Then there are the three kinds of suffering. There is the suffering of pain. Then, the suffering of change—which refers to all samsaric pleasures (such as the pleasures of music, surfing, jumping out of an airplane with a parachute, sex, drugs, alcohol, and so forth). All the samsara pleasures are in reality in the nature of suffering, but they appear as pleasure to begin with. This is what is called the suffering of change. Then the third suffering, the all-pervasive compounded suffering, is being under the contaminated seed of delusion and karma. So it is pervaded by karma, the seed. There is no worse suffering that the pervasive compounded suffering.

So to be free from all of this forever, this is by learning Buddhism, meditation, the three higher trainings, the five paths to liberation, and so forth. It is from this that one can know how to be free from samsara forever. Not only that, they meet the Mahayana teachings, learn bodhichitta on the basis of generating compassion to all sentient beings, practice the six paramitas, the sutra five paths and ten bhumis, and then they are able to meet the Mahayana tantra. And by practicing Mahayana tantra, they are able to achieve enlightenment in one brief lifetime of degenerate time.

It is by practicing the eight Mahayana precepts, or eight pratimoksha precepts, five lay vows, or even less than five, like four, three, two, or one, even just for one day, this is what helps for five hundred lifetimes to have a human rebirth or deva rebirth and so forth.

By practicing charity it brings the success of wealth and so forth, all the enjoyments, for many hundreds of lifetimes, or even thousands of lifetimes. This can come from even just one time giving charity. This is the real cause of success in your life.

Practicing the good heart is the most important thing and the best cause of success in your life. For however many times you are born in samsara, until you achieve the ultimate wisdom directly perceiving emptiness that ceases delusion and karma, which are the causes of the oceans of suffering in samsara, practicing the good heart is the real cause of happiness. Then there is no non-virtue, only virtue. The good heart is the best way to create virtue.

“In the service of others” is written in Spanish on the backs of t-shirts created for the Lama Zopa Rinpoche event in Spain, April 2019. Photo by Alexis Roitmann.

Of course people would think that it is from education. But there are so many uneducated people in the world, in less developed countries, who are so happy, whose wishes get fulfilled, who have wealth and all their wishes succeed, but they have no education. Education can help, but it is not the main cause; it is the condition. Many times, if you have education but don’t have a good heart, then having education causes problems such as ego, pride, non-virtuous thought, the thought to harm others and to destroy the world, and so forth.

Therefore some people have high degrees and very good education, but still they cannot find jobs, or it takes a long time. Of course if the person’s mind is open then I would suggest reading the Arya Sanghata Sutra and Golden Light Sutra in order to collect unbelievable merits and the causes of success. Then also my general advice is every day to help insects, people, animals, and especially those who have problems, to help them in any way possible.

So the ultimate conclusion is to practice the good heart. This is the best Dharma. With the good heart everything happens, especially enlightenment—the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations—not only to achieve enlightenment, but to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsara sufferings and to bring them to enlightenment.

So this is what you are doing and what the center does. All of you who are helping the center and working at the center, you are helping every sentient being, every animal, every ant in the differing universes, every mosquito, all the different kinds of fish, every slug, every mouse, every maggot, and every tiny flea.

Thank you very much. Please enjoy life with the good heart. That is the best way to enjoy the life. With a good heart, this causes inner happiness that goes up to enlightenment.

Thank you very much, see you soon.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

Colophon: Scribed by Holly Ansett, Taos, New Mexico, US, June 2017. Lightly edited by Laura Miller, March 2019.

Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche teach live from Madrid, Spain, April 26-29:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/

Find recordings of recent Lama Zopa Rinpoche teachings:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche blessing water to put in the lake and benefit all beings there, Madrid, Spain, April 2019. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

A student wrote to Lama Zopa Rinpoche about how she and her brothers and sisters responded to the murder of their father and grandmother. Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrote back to the student and then requested that his letter and an edited version of the student’s original letter be shared online so that all could read them. Here is Rinpoche’s letter: 

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,

Thank you very much for your kind letter explaining your experience. Since you are a lawyer, what you would do normally, and what other people in the world would do normally, is only think of this lifetime, especially if someone had killed your father. That kind of harm is a huge and difficult one to bear.

Most people don’t think about karma, reincarnation, and so forth, and that all problems come from the mind, come from I. They don’t know that. Or even if they know intellectually, they don’t practice that. So they would put that person, whom they called “enemy,” in prison or they would kill that person, harm them back, or even do worse if they can. That is normally what people think and do in the world.

Then for a long time you were checking your experience and you realized that it is the result; you experienced the result of what you did in the past to others. The person who killed your father and grandmother were badly treated and harmed by you in the past.

Then you helped your brothers and sisters be harmonious and decide to help, instead of take revenge. This is the greatest practice. This is what Buddha said to do when somebody harms. This is what Buddha and what holy beings do in the world, and what bodhisattvas do. Somebody harmed you, worldly people say “an enemy,” but instead of harming back, you only benefit. This is what holy beings, bodhisattvas do, like that. Your actions follow that. This is the actual practice.

You made numberless gurus—His Holiness the Dalai Lama, all the gurus, all the buddhas, numberless bodhisattvas—most happy. You and your brothers and sisters made them most happy, pleased them the most. It is the best.

With my two hands together at my heart, I am thanking you a billion, zillion times from my heart to you and to your brothers and sisters. Please tell them I am thanking them. You pleased most His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the Buddha of Compassion, and then numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas.

The great bodhisattva Shantideva said in The Bodhisattva’s Way of Life:

My karma persuaded them,
Therefore, I received this harm.
Because of that, didn’t I make the person fall in the hole of the hell?

What it is saying is first why you received this harm. For example, relating to your life story, because you treated a person that way in a past life, the result happened: you received harm, and your father and grandmother were killed. By that action that happened, now the person who harmed is in the human realm, but soon that will end. That person will leave the human realm. And due to that negative karma, they will get born in the hole of the hell. Then suffer in the hell realms for an unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable length of time, suffer the heaviest suffering.

So that is not only practicing patience, but developing compassion, by thinking that the person who harmed you, which was due to your negative karma, now has to be born in hell and suffer for an unbelievable length of time. All that started originally from you; you harmed this person. This is a way to develop compassion—thinking about what obliged the person to do to harm, to engage in negative karma, to harm you. So please tell this to your sisters and brothers.

So in essence in Buddhism, first thinking only of your happiness, you see that to not receive harm from others, you don’t harm others. If you don’t harm others, then you don’t receive harm from others. If you benefit others, then as a result others benefit you, bring happiness to you. So that is only thinking of cherishing yourself, thinking only of you. So now thinking of numberless sentient beings, you stop harming others, then they don’t receive harm. The numberless sentient beings you benefit, they receive happiness. So this is incredible Mahayana Buddhism. This is the great vehicle, without talking about tantra. This is the basic practice of Mahayana Buddhism.

Similarly, the Tibetan people want to fight, like in the normal world, fight back at Mainland China, but His Holiness the Dalai Lama advised them to not fight. Without fighting the truth will win. He is talking only peace, in terms of dealing with Mainland China, only dealing in peace. If you fight, what happens is a similar story as you mentioned. Then you are creating the negative karma to receive harm from others, again and again. Then there is no end to suffering in samsara, no end, not only no beginning, but no end.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama advised that only by being peaceful, only by truth, will they win peace. It is so important this advice. This way you don’t receive harm back from others. You aren’t attacked by others. You don’t experience war. You get only the result—peace and happiness. You treat others peacefully, and as a result you receive peace, others help you. That is really Dharma practice.

Please tell your brothers and sisters, that is real practice, the best Dharma practice. What your family did, that should be an example to the world, to those who have highest scientific knowledge. Your family is a good example for all those billionaires and zillionaires. It is a good example for anyone—educated, uneducated, poor, rich. This is the best example for them.

Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

Here is the letter first sent by the student to Lama Zopa Rinpoche:

Dear Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche,

… Five days after my ordination, my grandmother and father died in the same event. I felt shocked about losing my father. Just that day in the morning, he called me and asked me if I was happy with the ordination. He was Catholic, but respectful. I replied I was very happy. Then he replied he was happy for me too. Same day at night, he died with his mother in their house.

They were poisoned by gas in their house. The gas was coming from the kitchen, and they fell asleep and died. In time, we discovered they were killed. My father’s first cousin killed them in order to steal or inherit money and keep it from my family. When we discovered that, it was a great shock. I have two brothers and two sisters. We were very angry.

I was incredibly angry, very confused. Just being ordained, I was trying my best to have a good heart and good thoughts. On the other hand, I was very angry about what happened. Out of anger I decided to go and visit the person who killed my father. I took my purse and started to walk to the car. Suddenly an image of you, Rinpoche, came into my mind. You were sitting in meditation posture with a beautiful and exquisite smile. At that moment, I started to cry so deeply and I realized what had happened. Straight away I thought, “Only because of Rinpoche’s great compassion did he ordained me.”

Then I decided to not visit the person who damaged my family. I cried and cried for a couple of days, trying to put all the experience together. I just felt that ordination was protecting my mind from seeing (I was a lawyer before) revenge, killing, cheating, and stealing. Feeling so protected by you, feeling so, so fortunate, I made the following statement: “From now on, my aim and duty is going to be to reduce my anger. When I am capable of overcoming anger, then I will help my brothers and sisters.”

During many months I did analytical meditation about anger. After one year, the anger had been reduced very much. Then I started working with my brothers and sisters to reduce their anger. One day, continuing with analytical meditation, I thought, “Maybe that was family karma.” Then I thought, “If that is the case, that means that in the past we have created the same, killing and stealing an inheritance for our own family.”

I imagined killing my own family and stealing from them, and it was so difficult to believe. Because in this life I have not killed a human being. And I had the belief that I was a good person. I continued meditating and analyzing. And then I got an insight: “I cannot experience anything that I have not created.”

So I imagined again myself with my two brothers and two sisters killing someone’s father and stealing the inheritance. Oh, Rinpoche, the biggest pain I’ve ever experienced came, thinking and understanding that in a past life I had dared to kill someone, so painful. It’s very difficult to overcome that. By thinking about it over and over, after two years I felt some peace, to understand that we were experiencing the result of actions that we had created. If we created it, we deserved the result.

Then I thought, if we created it in another lifetime, in this life the best thing to do is not to put that person in jail but to offer the inheritance to the person who killed and stole from my family. After many meetings with my brothers and sisters, we decided to give away the money and properties from the inheritance to the cousin who killed and not to put her in prison. We decided peace in death was more important than inheritance, and peace in life was more important.

This story, Rinpoche, is to voice my huge gratitude to you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you so, so much Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche for saving my life and protect my mind all the time. …

Colophon: Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s letter scribed by Ven. Holly Ansett, Nepal, March 2017. Both letters lightly edited by Laura Miller, March 2019.

Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche teach live from Madrid, Spain, April 26-29:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/

Find more advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche:
https://fpmt.org/teachers/zopa/advice/

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 Tushita Meditation Centre, McLeod Ganj, India, February 2019. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

During the 2018 retreat in Australia, Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave advice on how to prepare for retreat, captured in this excerpt and video clip:

… I escaped [Tibet] through Bhutan to Buxa [Duar in India]. For eight years I lived in Buxa. Other monks lived there for ten years then went to Bylakuppe and Mundgod. I received teachings from my gurus and took part in debating. Of course my study was like that of a little child. My study was just child’s study, so nothing much.

So after coming back to Lawudo [in Nepal], reading the text of the Kadampa geshes’ advice on how to practice Dharma [Opening the Door of Dharma: The Initial Stage of Training the Mind in the Graduated Path to Enlightenment, a collection of advice by Lodro Gyaltsen] I checked back over my life.

All those lives I checked back, which become Dharma or not, what became Dharma or not, what I did and whether it became Dharma or not. When I looked back by reading that text, nothing became Dharma. All those things I did didn’t become Dharma. I realized that nothing became Dharma.

Then because of that I was able to clean my mind like you clean the room, like you clean the house of garbage—it makes the house dirty so you clean it out. I was able to clean my mind by reading that.

Then I began the Vajrayogini retreat, my first time. So because of that, it was unbelievable, incredible, hard to believe the first day, hard to believe that if my life could be like this, my whole life could be like this. I couldn’t believe, incredible peace and happiness, peace was incredible, unbelievable, couldn’t believe the whole life could be like that. The retreat became really very pure because of having read that text and cleaned out the garbage of the mind.

So the garbage is the eight worldly dharmas. This is an idea for you, if you want to do retreat, the best thing is to read this text. I gave teachings in Bodhgaya so there is book, what is it called?

Student: The Door to Satisfaction.

Rinpoche: It is not completely translated from the Tibetan text, most has been, but not completely translated. So to read that before doing retreat, my experience is to clean your mind first then you begin tantra retreat, then it becomes clean, very pure. Then you taste the Dharma, your mind becomes Dharma. …

Watch more of Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching on “Why to Abandon the Eight Worldly Dharmas, How to Prepare for Retreat”:
https://youtu.be/uJzPi45Rc-U

Colophon: Excerpted from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, Bendigo, Victoria, Australia, April 8, 2018. Simultaneously transcribed by Ven. Joan Nicell. Lightly edited by Laura Miller, February 2019.

Find complete videos of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent teachings:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/

Rinpoche teaches in Spain, April 26-29, then leads a Vajrayogini retreat at Institut Vajra Yogini in France, beginning May 10. Public teachings from these events will be streamed live:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/

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.