Advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Lama Zopa Rinpoche and monks doing incense puja, Kopan Monastery, February 2019. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche sent this advice about developing a good heart to a student who had been offering healing classes at a center for twenty-five years.

As you know, caring for sentient beings, compassion for sentient beings, cherishing sentient beings, opens the door [to limitless qualities.] As it says in Lama Chöpa [LC92] by the great enlightened being Panchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen, and as the Buddha also said,

The mind that cherishes mothers and places them in bliss
Is the gateway leading to infinite qualities.
Seeing this, I seek your blessings to cherish these transmigratory beings
More than my life, even should they rise up as my enemies.

This is the best Dharma practice to help others and the best meditation, the best way to practice, the best healing. To develop the good heart and let them practice this is the best psychology, the best meditation, the best Dharma, the best everything. It is the quick way to achieve enlightenment, the quick way to free sentient beings from obscurations and bring them to full enlightenment quickly.

Below are two stories, examples of this. There are many other stories, many that I don’t know, these are just examples.

Asanga meditated in a cave for twelve years and tried to achieve Maitreya Buddha, but nothing happened. After twelve years he came down and saw a wounded dog covered in maggots on the road. He felt unbearable compassion, so he cut flesh from his thigh in order to pick up the maggots and put them on his flesh. He thought if he picked them up with his fingers he might hurt them, so he thought he must pick up each maggot with his tongue. He closed his eyes and stuck out his tongue to pick up the maggots. Suddenly in front of him was Maitreya Buddha, not the wounded dog.

Before, his mind was obscured and he only saw a wounded dog, but after generating unbelievable compassion he purified so much negative karma he had collected in the past. It was unbelievable purification, by generating compassion, and then he was able to see Maitreya Buddha. He immediately grabbed Maitreya’s robes and asked Maitreya Buddha why he had not come sooner, as he had tried to meditate for twelve years in the cave. He asked why he hadn’t seen Maitreya, and Maitreya Buddha replied, “I was there the whole time, but you could not see me. You know the place where you spat in the cave? That’s where I was.” Then Maitreya showed him the stains of spit on his robes.

The other story is about the great yogi Ngagpo Chöpawa who was going to Odi for the tantric practice of action. On the way, near the river, he saw a lady who was completely black in color, covered with leprosy and with pus coming out of her sores. She could not walk and asked him to take her across the river, but he ignored her.

After some time, his disciple Getsul Tsimbulwa came. He was not a gelong but a getsul, with thirty-six vows. The woman asked him the same thing, to take her across the river. Even though he was a monk and was not meant to touch women, he felt unbelievable compassion the minute he saw her, and immediately carried her across on his back. Because he generated unbelievable compassion for her, even though she was dirty and covered with leprosy, even without crossing the whole river, his negative karma was purified and in the middle of the river he saw her as Dorje Pagmo, an enlightened deity and she took him to the pure land of Dagpa Kachö.

Since our mind is ordinary, obscured, there are many things we see as ordinary, when they are not.

From Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice “The Advantages of Cherishing Others,” posted in January 2019 on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/advantages-cherishing-others

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche offering a khata to a photo of Lama Yeshe at Losang Dragpa Centre, Malaysia, 2016. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Six weeks after Lama Yeshe’s passing in 1984, Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered a personal tribute to his guru, Lama Yeshe. Here’s an excerpt from “Our Heart Jewel, Our Wish-granting Gem,” first published in Wisdom, #2 1984:

For those of us who have received teachings directly from Lama Yeshe, he was incomparably kinder than all the buddhas of the three times. He took care of us like babies, not only by giving teachings. Lama was more than a mother, more than a father to us, suffering as he did in everyday life for us.

He not only looked after our present life, but our future life also. He led us, helped us make preparation for happiness in this life all the way up to enlightenment.

For all of us it is the greatest sadness that Lama has passed away. We have lost our heart jewel, our wish-granting gem. The remarkable aspect that we can see, that we can communicate with, that we can hear advice from: this has gone.

I think it must be the greatest sadness not only for us, but for many other people also, Tibetan and Western, who are not his disciples; people who have just talked to Lama, or met him briefly when he was traveling, at different times and different places all over the world. Or for those who have only read Lama’s teachings or just heard his holy words. Even those who never saw Lama but only heard his voice on a tape recorder. All these people who have felt Lama’s great warmth, his special character, his great loving kindness, his unbearable compassion; I think Lama’s passing must be a great sadness for them, too.

Lama had such great will, such incredible dedication to work for others. He planned great projects, for the benefit of others and to spread the teachings. Not only did he have the visualization of all this but he was able to actualize it; he accomplished his plans, ensured that they were done, he didn’t just imagine them.

There are many learned lamas and geshe, all bearing the name “holy being” and practicing and teaching Dharma, in the East and in the West. And of them Lama is known to be very special; his actions unbearably compassionate, so excellent. The way Lama gave teachings to Western people especially: so suitable, exactly what was needed, perfect for each individual person.

When the sun rises the darkness of the earth is dispelled. In the same way the darkness of ignorance and problems in the mind of so many sentient beings around the world have been dispelled by the sun of Lama’s teachings. Because of him these past few years, since we first met the Russian princess Zina—so much Dharma has spread to dispel the darkness of ignorance. …

Read more from Rinpoche’s tribute to Lama Yeshe:
https://fpmt.org/mandala/archives/older/mandala-for-1984/wisdom-2-1984/our-heart-jewel-our-wish-granting-gem/

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.

Cover of Wisdom, Number 2 1984. Photo of Lama Yeshe by Ueli Minder, taken in Geneva, Switzerland, 1983.

The Tibetan New Year, Losar, falls on February 5 this year. For FPMT students, this day has additional significance as it commemorates the anniversary of the parinirvana of Lama Yeshe, who co-founded FPMT with Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

Lama Yeshe’s heart stopped beating just before dawn on Losar, March 3, 1984. He was forty-nine years old.

In 1959, Lama Yeshe fled the Chinese Communists in Tibet, going into exile in India. He survived tremendous hardship living as a refugee monk in Buxa Duar, where Lama Zopa Rinpoche became his student.

Then in 1967, the two lamas began teaching Western students, leading to the establishment and flourishing of Kopan Monastery in Nepal and the FPMT organization throughout the world.

As part of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice on how to celebrate Losar and the Fifteen Days of Miracles, Rinpoche recommends that centers host events to introduce new students to Lama Yeshe. These events might include students who knew Lama Yeshe sharing their favorite stories, watching videos of Lama teaching, or reading stories about Lama.

In that spirit, we’re highlighting Wisdom, Number 2 1984. Wisdom was the precursor to Mandala magazine. Its second issue, published not long after Lama Yeshe’s death, commemorated Lama. The issue included some of the last teaching from Lama Yeshe, a report on his passing, and tributes from Tibetan geshes as well as from Western students.

These words from Lama Yeshe’s teacher Geshe Lhundub Sopa Rinpoche, who knew Lama Yeshe at Sera Je Monastery in Tibet, reflect on Lama Yeshe’s goals and achievements:

“… During these past years Lama Yeshe has done so much beneficial activity for so many people, especially in the West. In fact, these two teachers, Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa, have done such a wonderful job. The result is everywhere in the West—so many centers, so many students who follow the teachings seriously.

“And because of all this activity the students have such a wonderful opportunity to meet other teachers, to receive many, many instructions and teachings. Even in Tibet we didn’t have that kind of opportunity! To have high lamas teaching all the time and giving high initiations, to have all this available is very, very rare.

“So, when I see what has happened in the past few years, it makes me really happy, and I feel such admiration for Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa and for their students. It is very difficult to follow a new religion coming from a different culture. It is not easy to accept and to follow deeply, but I see so many of you people are doing so, enthusiastically and with faith. I am really amazed when I see all this, and I rejoice and am very happy. …”

You can read the complete tribute from Geshe Lhundub Sopa Rinpoche:
https://fpmt.org/mandala/archives/older/mandala-for-1984/wisdom-2-1984/we-should-be-very-harmonious-and-try-to-help-each-other/

Find all the article from Wisdom, Number 2 1984:
https://fpmt.org/mandala/archives/older/mandala-for-1984/wisdom-2-1984/

Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice on practices for Losar and the Fifteen Days of Miracles:
https://fpmt.org/edu-news/ideas-and-advice-for-losar-and-the-fifteen-miracle-days-of-chotrul-duchen-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 petting Shamatha the cat who had jumped up onto Rinpoche’s throne, Kopan Monastery, Kathmandu, Nepal, December 2018. Photo by Bill Kane.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave the following advice to a student who had asked Rinpoche how to benefit a very sick twenty-one year old cat.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one, I heard you wanted very much to come here but you have a cat that is twenty-one years old and is very sick, so you couldn’t come. I understand, that’s very good taking care of the cat.

It’s good to recite the Maitreya Buddha mantra in the cat’s ear. That causes the cat to never be reborn in the lower realms, to have a higher rebirth, and to meet the Dharma. Also recite Medicine Buddha mantra, Chenrezig Buddha mantra, Milarepa Buddha mantra, and Lotus Pinnacle of Amoghapasha mantra: OM PÄDMO USHNISHA VIMALE HUM PHAT. Recite these mantras several times each day.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche at an Animal Blessing Day organized by Ganden Tendar Ling with relics, circumambulation of holy objects and altar table, and more, Moscow, Russia, May 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Also recite the Three Principal Aspects of the Path and different lamrim prayers. The most important thing is to take the cat around holy objects. If you can, make an altar on a table and put many holy objects on the table, piled up—tsa-tsas, buddha statues, pictures, and texts, then take the cat around, on the same level as the altar. Put pictures of buddhas, statues, and tsa-tsas, as many as possible, then go around that.

However many holy objects are there—one hundred or one thousand— each time the cat goes around the holy objects, it creates that many causes of enlightenment. It is good to have many tsa-tsas there and to take the cat around them as much as you can before he dies, otherwise there is nothing much you can do.

Here is a powa pill. When the cat dies, put it on his crown with butter and honey.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche reciting mantras for a very sick elderly cat, Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, Pisa, Italy, October 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

It is very kind of you to take care of this cat for twenty-one years. Perhaps the cat could also be a recent family member, for example, if your father or mother died, or sometimes it could be your wife from a past life. It could be anything.

Please continue to make your life most meaningful for every sentient being with bodhichitta. Thank you very much. I hope to see you soon.

This advice, “Practices to Benefit a Cat,” is from “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book,” published in December 2018 on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/practices-benefit-cat

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 water offering, preta offering, and offering to Dzambala near the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, Bendigo, Australia, April 2018. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave the following teaching during the retreat at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion in Australia in April 2018:

Whatever you do to please the guru, just there [by doing that], without even doing many hundreds of thousands of prostration, your karma changes. If you’re going to be reborn in the lower realms, in the hell realms, just in that minute [that you please the guru], [your karma] changes to being born in a pure land, perfect human rebirth. You have to know this, and practice mindfulness.

Because of the guru’s kindness, it is like this. Whether you are with the guru or whether you are far away, it doesn’t matter. Just within that minute everything changes without needing to go through all these preliminary practices. You understand? You have to pick up the point. Like my teacher Geshe Rabten, you have to keep your mind always on the one thing that brings you to enlightenment quickest, that frees you from samsara quickest. Your whole life you meditate, meditate, but it is not sure [the result].

You have to understand the most important point—the profit in your life, not talking business profit but Dharma profit, the biggest profit, Dharma practice—the quickest way to achieve enlightenment and become free from samsara. You have to know this and practice this example, whether you are close to your guru or whether you are far.

By pleasing the guru all the buddhas become pleased. By fulfilling the guru’s holy wishes and advice, every day, every hour, minute, second, living in the vow, monk or nun or lay vow, whatever, I’m just giving different examples. In this way you fulfill the guru’s holy wishes and advice. Then also pleasing the guru by doing retreat, that retreat the guru advised, then with each mantra you recite, you get closer, very quickly, you become closer to liberation. You become free from samsara. Each time as you recite what the guru advised you, you get closer to enlightenment, each time you recite the mantra.

Even this work is fulfilling the guru’s wishes, advice. So the work you do—each step you walk in order to fulfill the guru’s wishes and advice, building a monastery, shopping, or whatever—each footstep you make, you become further from samsara and closer to enlightenment, closer to being free from samsara, and closer to bringing all sentient beings to enlightenment. Teaching Dharma, talking to people, or talking to the workers, whatever, doing what the guru advised, wishes, in each second you are further and further from samsara, instead of closer you become further from samsara and closer to enlightenment, to being able to free sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment. All that, closer and closer. Everything that is fulfilling the guru’s wishes and advice, for you the benefit is like that. …

Watch the complete teaching by Rinpoche on “The Most Essential Thing to Achieve Enlightenment”:
https://youtu.be/gbqxWtQenq4

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/

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.

Water bowl offerings on the beautiful altar that was set up next to Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s throne during the teachings organized by Gendun Drupa Center, Martigny, Switzerland, November 2018. Photo by Harald Weichhart.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrote a group of sixteen retreatants who had completed 100,000 water bowl offerings together and offered their practice to Rinpoche. They asked if they could do preliminary practices in this way, doing the practices as group and counting what they had collectively done. Here’s Rinpoche’s response:

In Tibet this happened: there was a great lama in Amdo, I’ve forgotten his name, who went to the monastery to look for the text on Gyalwa Gyatso. Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche advised of this. So this lama explained that in Tibet he put up a big tent and then many people made the water bowl offerings together. Then they offered them all together, so that means even though all the water bowls weren’t done by each person, the group counted them together. The lama used this technique in this way to finish them. Therefore, when you make an offering, you can offer even what has been offered by others. 

I think similarly you can do this for light offerings. For example, even though many people have worked making the butter lamps and so forth, when you offer them you can offer them all and count them all. Like the water offerings, you can count all of them together.

Also, it’s the same with tsog offerings—even if the tsog is made by different people, when you offer it you can offer all the tsog together. So if there are one hundred people and they make a billion tsog offerings, then each person offers the billion tsog offerings.

Water bowl offerings on the altar at the teachings with Lama Zopa Rinpoche in Martigny, Switzerland, November 2018. Photo by Harald Weichhart.

But for other preliminary practices it isn’t the same. For example, if one person eats delicious ice cream, the other one hundred people or a billion people, or tens of thousands of people or one hundred thousand million billion people, don’t get the benefit of that one person eating ice cream.

I don’t think so, otherwise in that case, for example, if a monk eats ice cream does everyone feel like they have also eaten ice cream? When the monk’s stomach is full, is everybody’s stomach also full? When the monk is hungry, is everybody also hungry? When the monk eats potato pancakes, does everybody in France feel like they have eaten potato pancakes? If you can do that, then it’s OK.

When the monk does Vajrasattva practice, has everybody in the world done Vajrasattva? When the monk’s stomach is full after eating potato pancakes or eating momos, are all the people’s stomachs in the whole world full? Have they received the same momos or potato pancakes? If so, then it’s OK.

Anyway, from my heart I want to thank everyone, all the sixteen people, everybody. Billions of thanks for creating the cause of enlightenment. That means the cause of enlightenment for all the numberless sentient beings. That means each water bowl is done for the numberless hell beings’ enlightenment, the numberless hungry ghosts’ enlightenment, the numberless animals’ enlightenment—every mosquito, every single ant, every maggot, every slug, every spider—for all their enlightenment. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow! Every water bowl has been done for the human beings in the numberless universes, and for the numberless suras and numberless asuras. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow ! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!

From “Water Bowl Offerings as a Group Practice,” posted in Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book in November 2018 on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/water-bowl-offerings-group-practice

For more about water bowl offering, FPMT Education Services has created “The Preliminary Practice of Altar Set-up & Water Bowl Offerings” available from the FPMT Foundation Store as an ebook and PDF:
https://shop.fpmt.org/The-Preliminary-Practice-of-Altar-Set-up-Water-Bowl-Offerings-eBook_p_2577.html

“The Preliminary Practice of Altar Set-up & Water Bowl Offerings” is also available as a print booklet:
https://shop.fpmt.org/The-Preliminary-Practice-of-Altar-Set-up-Water-Bowl-Offerings-_p_339.html

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 the Reithalle, hosted by Aryatara Institute, Munich, Germany, November 2018. Photo by Harald Weichhart.

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

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

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

From “Benefits of Vajrasattva Practice,” posted in “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book”:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/lama-zopa-rinpoches-online-advice-book

The FPMT Foundation Store offers many resources to support students in their Vajrasattva practice: 
https://shop.fpmt.org/search.asp?keyword=vajrasattva&search=

More information, photos and updates about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be found on Rinpoche’s webpage on FPMT.org. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and FPMT via email, sign up to FPMT News.

Tsog offering during Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings in Martigny, Switzerland, November 2018. Photo by Olivier Adam.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche received many messages wishing him “Happy Birthday” this year. So on Rinopche’s birthday, which is December 3, he recorded a video message as a thank you to all who offered him birthday greetings.

In the video, Rinpoche gives advice on how to best see one’s birthday and the practices that can be done that become the causes for total and complete enlightenment for oneself and for all sentient beings.

Watch Lama Zopa Rinopche’s Birthday Message:
https://youtu.be/ajT7srFuHw8

You can find the transcript of Rinpoche’s birthday message here:
https://fpmt.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/11/a-birthday-message-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche/Lama-Zopa-Rinpoche-Birthday-Message-20181203.pdf

Find complete videos of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings, including recent teachings in Switzerland, Germany, Spain, and Kopan Monastery:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/

FPMT.org and Mandala Publications brings you news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and of activities, teachings, and events from over 160 FPMT centers, projects, and services around the globe. If you like what you read, consider becoming a Friend of FPMT, which supports our work.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Jamyang Buddhist Centre, London, UK, 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche sent a special video message to Jamyang Buddhist Centre in London, describing the importance and benefit of having a Dharma center.

Rinpoche’s message was in honor of Jamyang’s fortieth anniversary, which was marked with two days of events in October.

The celebration included an evening remembering Lama Yeshe, the launch of the Cafe at Jamyang’s cookbook, a presentation on the history of Jamyang, cake, a group photo, and a look toward the center’s future.

In the video, Rinpoche thanks all the people who have helped Jamyang exist over the years.

Rinpoche also explains how FPMT centers can bring peace to the world by teaching people about compassion and how to develop a good heart. 

Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Message Celebrating Jamyang Buddhist Centre’s 40 Anniversary:
https://youtu.be/8NCHapZcHgQ

Learn more about Jamyang Buddhist Center:
https://www.jamyang.co.uk/

Find complete videos of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent 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 and the monks from Kopan Monastery doing Lama Chopa on Lama Tsongkhapa Day, Nepal, December 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

On last year’s Lama Tsongkhapa Day, Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave a teaching on the true meaning of the guru at Kopan Monastery, while seated in front of the large statue of Lama Tsongkhapa in Kopan’s main gompa. Here is an excerpt from the beginning of that teaching:

I mentioned one quotation: “Even if you have complete qualities, without a guru you cannot be liberated from samsara.”

For example, you can say by heart more than a hundred volumes of the Buddha’s teachings, called the Kangyur, then more than two hundred volumes by Nagarjuna, Asanga, and all the great yogis and pandits from India—their commentaries are more than two hundred volumes—so you know all this by heart and you can explain it, but if you don’t have a guru, you cannot be free, you cannot be liberated from samsara, the oceans of suffering of samsara. You cannot be free. Do you understand?

Then it says, “Without an oarsman, the boat alone cannot cross over the water. Without the guru, there is no name, even the name ‘buddha’ doesn’t exist before the guru. Before the guru there is not even the name of buddha.” So numberless past buddhas, numberless present buddhas, numberless future buddhas, all came from the guru. That is the understanding, the realization, that we, including myself, need.

The mind has a gross mind, a subtle mind, and an extremely subtle mind. The body has a gross body, a subtle body, and an extremely subtle body. Why all sentient beings can become enlightened is because the nature of the mind has no mistakes. The mind is temporarily obscured, like the weather, the sky covered by clouds. The sky is not oneness with the clouds; it is temporarily obscured by the clouds. The mind is temporarily veiled. The nature of the mind is not oneness with the mistake. The nature is pure. That is why sentient beings can become enlightened; what it says in the philosophy is all sentient beings can become enlightened.

So here I’m talking about subtle consciousness, not only is it in nature pure, not only that, but even the primordial mind—this is highest tantra subject actually, normally you don’t hear about this except when you are studying highest tantra—but I think for you, to practice the most important subject for you, to really know what the guru is, you have to know that. That which is totally pure, having ceased, not only its nature is pure, but also free from temporary obscurations, so now [it is] bound with infinite compassion embracing us sentient beings.

This is what is mentioned in Phabongkha Dechen Nyingpo’s Calling the Guru from Afar, the real thing, what is guru. At the beginning it says three times LA MA KHYEN, LA MA KHYEN, LA MA KHYEN, which means “may the guru understand.” It doesn’t mean that the guru doesn’t understand, doesn’t see, is totally blocked, totally dark. It doesn’t mean that. But that you have a very serious matter, that you have been suffering from beginningless rebirths, most serious, so you want to express that. Even the guru understands, but you want to express it. It is kind of emphasizing it.

SANG GYÄ KÜN GYI YE SHE DE CHHEN CHHÖ KUR RO CHIG
The wisdom of all buddhas, one taste with the great bliss dharmakaya,

DE NYI DRIN CHÄN LA MA KÜN GYI RANG ZHIN THAR THUG
Is itself the ultimate nature of all kind gurus.

LA MA CHHÖ KYI KU LA NYING NÄ SÖL WA DEB SO
I beseech you, Guru, dharmakaya,

DI CHHI BAR DO KÜN TU DRÄL ME JE SU ZUNG SHIG
Please guide me always without separation, in this life, future lives, and the bardo. 

That is an incredible, unbelievably important subject. It takes time to understand and to feel. SANG GYÄ KÜN GYI YE SHE, “all the buddhas’,” YE SHE, “transcendental wisdom,” DE CHHEN CHHÖ KUR RO CHIG, “one taste in dharmakaya, dharmakaya the great bliss.” It says it is “one taste in the dharmakaya, the great bliss.”

Then the request is: DI CHHI BAR DO KÜN TU DRÄL ME JE SU ZUNG SHIG, “In this life, intermediate state, bardo, this life, next life, intermediate state, all the time.” “All the time” means every second, all the time. Then “without separation” means the guru and yourself without separation. “Please guide” means bring yourself to that same state, the dharmakaya. That is the meaning of “guide.”

We have the same prayer in Lama Chopa, “You are the guru, you are the deity, dakini, Dharma protector …”; that request is the same. Even if you are going to die today, or even if you have one hour to die, one minute, a few seconds, this is what you request to the guru. It is like that. That is the most important. …

Watch the teaching “The True Meaning of the Guru and How to Find and Follow Him Part 1”:
https://youtu.be/AUmsvrAwfdo

Watch the teaching “The True Meaning of the Guru and How to Find and Follow Him Part 2″:
https://youtu.be/_DFpJdKXN1U

Colophon: Excerpted from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings at Kopan Monastery, December 12, 2017. Simultaneously transcribed by Ven. Joan Nicell. Lightly edited by Laura Miller, November 2018.

Lama Tsongkhapa Day, Ganden Ngamchoe, is on Sunday, December 2, this year. Find practices recommended by Lama Zopa Rinpoche here:
https://fpmt.org/edu-news/lama-tsongkhapa-day-ganden-ngamchoe-is-on-december-2/

Find complete videos of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent 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 with the reincarnation of Domo Geshe Rinpoche at Sera Je Monastery, Bulakyppe, India, December 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche sent this story to a student, mentioning in his letter that Domo Geshe Rinpoche built Domo Drugkar Gompa in Tibet, where Rinpoche tells the student he became a monk:

This great yogi Domo Geshe Rinpoche and some other lamas were in Tsang together with their guru—probably their root guru—and one day the root guru sent each of them to a different place. The guru told one of the lamas to go to Tsang and said to him, “You won’t benefit sentient beings, but you will be able to do your own practice.”

Domo Geshe Rinpoche was sent by the guru toward Domo near Sikkim to live in the forest. There the gorillas used to offer fruit to him. The shepherd of one of the rich families in Domo used to go to the mountains to look after animals and while there he sometimes saw a monk coming out and sometimes he saw gorillas coming out. He told the family, his boss, and the family told him to go and see the monk and invite him to come to them. So the shepherd went to see the monk and invited him to come down to the house. The monk accepted and came down and stayed for one year in the shrine room of the house. Then after one year he asked the family if they could build a monastery and they started to build him one.

That family’s name was Bumpo Tsang and they were a rich family in the area. They started the monastery and it was a good monastery for a long time. I became a monk there, but I only stayed there for six months. At that time all of Tibet was taken over by the Chinese. It was 1959 and the monastery was full of spies. There was all kinds of mess and Chinese leaders used to come sometimes to give talks. I offered my first examination there on one volume of a text, but I didn’t get to memorize the second volume because I escaped. But I memorized the text in the mornings and evenings in Pagri, which is a big place where I lived for three years. In the mornings and evenings I would memorize the text and every day we would go to do puja for the families who were benefactors of Domo Geshe’s monastery. We went every day except maybe once a year.

I think Lama Govinda came to Tibet and met Domo Geshe Rinpoche, and maybe heard some teachings from him. That’s why he wrote The Way of the White Clouds and a second book, Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism, which is a mixture of tantra and science. The Way of the White Clouds was one of the first books available in the West and our very first student, Zina Rachevsky, the Russian princess, read that book and came to look for a guru at Domo Geshe’s monastery in Ghoom, Darjeeling. Maybe she was looking for Domo Geshe.

I was staying in a room in this monastery with my teacher who looked after me and my teacher Lama Yeshe. One monk met Zina outside. He could speak a few words of English so he brought her to my room, opened the door and said, “Oh, here’s your friend.” She was blond and had a Tibetan sweater from the Darjeeling bus station. My teacher offered Zina some Tibetan tea poured from a Tibetan kettle into a monk’s mug and that day she drank it completely. That was the only day I saw her drink Tibetan tea. From that time onwards I never saw her drink Tibetan tea again. It was by meeting Zina that we started Kopan monastery and built Lawudo at the same time. Gradually all the other centers happened and now there are 160 or maybe more, and we have forty-four geshes or maybe even more.

This story, “Precious Images,” is from “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book,” published in April 2018 on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/precious-images

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche giving a talk in Madrid, Spain, October 2018. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

During the 2017 month-long lamrim meditation course at Kopan Monastery, Lama Zopa Rinpoche taught on karma, explaining a verse from Bodhicharyavatara (A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life) by Shantideva, the great eighth-century Indian Buddhist master. This is what Rinpoche taught:

In Bodhicharyavatara it is mentioned that “in the past, I gave such harm to other sentient beings, therefore sentient beings harming me is worthwhile. It is worthwhile for me to receive this harm.”

When others are harming you—even fleas biting you, even a mosquito biting you, ants biting you, bees stinging, others getting angry at you, abusing you—you see that whatever happens, there is always a reason. The reason is you harmed others first. So you can understand, by remembering why it happens, remember the reason, so then you can think, “It is worthwhile that I received [the harm].”

Usually what we do is think, “I’m perfect, the most perfect, never wrong, others are wrong.” You blame others. Then somebody harms, abuses you, somebody looks at you bad, somebody says something bad, and you harm back, you crush them, you disintegrate them, whatever you can do, immediately. It is like this. “There is nothing wrong with me. I’m perfect. Others are wrong.” …

This is not an educated person’s action. It is not an educated person’s personality. No, [it is the action of] an uneducated person, same as a tiger, a dog; if somebody harms you, then you bite back, the same. Somebody harms you, so you harm back. That is animal character. You understand? It is not wise. But this is how normally we do.

The reason [you receive harm] is that in the past you cheated or you abused others in that way. You abused others in that way, so then this time it happens to you. This person, why this person abuses you? Why? It is because in the past you abused this person in that way. Even if a flea is biting you, it is the same. So everything is the same.

So the great bodhisattva Shantideva said, “It is worthwhile that I receive harm from others this time.” It is worthwhile. 

Then, it is mentioned, “My karma persuaded, then I received this harm. By that, didn’t I lose that sentient being in the hole of the hell?”

So, it means in the past you gave harm. Then because of that, your karma persuaded the person, and the result is that that person is harming you. That happens from that cause—you harmed the person in the past so in this life you are harmed by this person.

Now the person harming you is in the human world. But because of that harm, it makes the person not be in the human realm in the future but to reincarnate and fall down into the hole of the hell, the hell realm.

Thinking of that is a way of generating compassion. Instead of getting angry and harming back, you generate compassion, the root of happiness for yourself and all sentient beings. To generate compassion back is very important.

Generate compassion. When other sentient beings abuse you, whatever harm they do to you, use that to generate compassion.

Watch the teaching by Lama Zopa Rinpoche from which this excerpt is taken:
https://youtu.be/THzO0Nue3jg

Colophon: Excerpted from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings at Kopan Monastery in Nepal, December 8, 2017. Simultaneously transcribed by Ven. Joan Nicell. Lightly edited by Laura Miller, October 2018.

Find out more about the courses offered at Kopan Monastery:
http://kopanmonastery.com/courses-retreats/courses

Find complete videos of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent 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.