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Advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Zopa Rinpoche in the Peace Park at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, Australia, May 2018. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
During the 2018 retreat in Australia, Lama Zopa Rinpoche explained the various results of positive actions, captured in this excerpt and video clip:
What Guru Shakyamuni Buddha sees, all the rest of the buddhas see similarly. They don’t find mistakes. No buddha finds mistakes in the way Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s omniscient mind sees reincarnation and karma, all the past, present, and future things—karma and its result. From virtuous action, karma, the result of happiness arises; from nonvirtuous action the result of suffering arises.
As I explained before, by practicing morality [in the past]—abstaining from killing—then in this life you have received the body of a happy transmigratory being. You have received, this time, a human body. That is the ultimate reason. The real proof, reason, is that.
Then in a past life you made charity. You practiced Dharma and made charity, not being miserly, making charity to other sentient beings of materials. Your merit—you made charity to others, so in this life you received wealth.
In a past life you practiced patience, so in this lifetime you have a beautiful body. And if you want to receive or to be born a human being with a beautiful body then you must practice patience in this life. Not get angry and practice patience, you have to know that.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “How to Achieve a Beautiful Human Body”:
https://youtu.be/bxDHB7qLP2o
Like Michael Jackson, he went so many times to make-up shops, to fix his nose, to fix this, to fix that. So many times he went to make-up shops. Not make-up, what do you call it? Operation. So many times Michael Jackson went. He died. I don’t know where he is. Maybe he is still dancing in a different body, maybe in an animal body he is dancing. I can’t say. Or maybe as a deva with a goddess he is dancing. I’m not sure.
So many people while they are young, they change many times. Then as they get older, their skin hanging, then they do an operation. So many times. You don’t need that if you practice patience instead of getting angry. If instead of getting angry you practice patience.
Even if one time you practice patience with somebody who makes you angry, for five hundred lifetimes you will have a beautiful body. It is like that if you practice patience one time with somebody, with insects, ants, with a mouse, with your parents, with your children, with your husband or wife. You practice patience then [you receive] a beautiful body for five hundred lifetimes.
If you practice patience one time, then for thousands, millions, bah, bah, bah.… You don’t need to go to make-up shops. You don’t need to build so many debts, debts, money, money, debts. If you don’t get enough money from your job, you get debts. You borrow money so many times, then you fail. You can go bankrupt. Then you hide. You go to Mount Everest. You go behind Mount Everest, in Tibet—I’m joking—or you go to Mount Kailash to hide.
Colophon: Excerpted from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, Bendigo, Victoria, Australia, April 1, 2018. Simultaneously transcribed by Ven. Joan Nicell. Lightly edited by Laura Miller, October 2018.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche teach LIVE from Spain, Germany, and Switzerland, October 19-November 18! For links to live video streams:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/
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 blessing a sick woman in Maratika, Nepal, February 2018. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche first taught at the month-long lamrim meditation course at Kopan Monastery in 1971. Rinpoche continues to offer teachings at the course most years. During a teaching at the 2017 Kopan Course, Rinpoche spoke about the great Drukpa Kagyu practitioner Gyalwa Gotsangpa (1189–1258):
Gotsangpa was unbelievable. I read the life story. He almost passed away by so many lice attacking him. He purposefully made charity of his body to the lice. Two times or three times he almost passed away.
He bore most unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable hardships to practice Dharma, purposefully. He was not just somebody who was very poor; he was poor, but not like that. He purposefully chose to bear hardships.
This lama, this great yogi, he had no interest in monasteries, organizations. His whole life was without monasteries, organizations. Gotsangpa. So comparing his Dharma practice to our Dharma practice, which is just between our lips, but his is wow, wow, wow, unbelievable hardships!
His advice is when you have sickness, when you experience cancer, relationship problems, or anything, pray: “May all sentient beings be free from sicknesses, spirit harm, negative karma, defilements.” Negative karma and defilements are collected from beginningless rebirths. “May all sentient beings be free from disease, spirit harm, negative karma, and defilements.”
“By my experiencing this sickness,” so every sickness, even relationship problems, or whatever, do according to that. So cancer, whatever it is: “By my experiencing this sickness or this problem, then may all sentient beings be free from sicknesses, spirit harm, negative karma, and defilements, and quickly be free and achieve enlightenment.”
You recite that like OM MANI PADME HUM, a mala. Like reciting a mantra, recite it like that. Meditate like that and recite like that. That is unbelievably good.
Even while you are walking, sitting, whatever, recite like that. So you collect merits more than the sky. You collect so many merits, more than the sky, when you do this, and it becomes the greatest purification, purifying the defilements and negative karma that you collected from beginningless rebirths. Then it becomes a quick path to enlightenment for you.
In other words, you use your problem; you use it for other sentient beings, numberless sentient beings, to achieve enlightenment. To free them from all the suffering and to achieve enlightenment, you use yourself, including your problem.
Like that, it is amazing. If you do like that, like reciting a mantra, if you do like that, then the cancer can be cured. Even if it is cancer, even if it is a disease for which there is no medicine, it can be cured.
Watch the teaching by Lama Zopa Rinpoche from which this excerpt is taken:
https://youtu.be/59YtMWKaxZ8
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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Ven. Roger Kunsang with FPMT Italy coordinator Lara Gatto’s dog, Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, Pisa, Italy, November 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave the following advice to a student who had asked Rinpoche how to purify his dog’s negative karma.
Regarding purification for yourself and your dog, take strong refuge in the Buddha and think that the Buddha sends light to yourself and your dog, and to any other animals or beings you want to think about. Think nectar comes from the Buddha and purifies the negative karma, created from beginningless time, of yourself and the dog and other beings you are thinking about.
Then recite the refuge prayer. Keep reciting the refuge prayer while visualizing the Buddha sending nectar out of his compassion and loving kindness, like sunlight, to yourself and your dog. It’s like switching the light on in a dark room; it totally purifies the negative karma created since beginningless rebirths. You can keep the dog nearby when you do this so the dog can hear you reciting the refuge prayer. This leaves an imprint on the dog’s mind and plants the seed of enlightenment.
If there is no stupa near where you live, then maybe you can go to a center that has a stupa. If you are able to go there that would be very good, then you take your dog around the holy objects, the stupas. Go around the holy objects as many times as possible with the dog. This purifies the negative karma collected since beginningless rebirths, therefore go around as many holy objects as possible with the dog.
This advice, “How to Purify a Dog’s Karma,” is from “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book,” published in September 2018 on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/how-purify-dog%E2%80%99s-karma
https://fpmt.org/education/
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 Chenrezig Institute gompa, Eudlo, Australia, June 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
During a teaching at Chenrezig Institute in June 2018, Lama Zopa Rinpoche discussed how we don’t know when our time of death will arrive.
So death can happen any time. You never know.
At Kopan when we were together—Lama Yeshe and Losang Nyima, Lama’s disciple from Tibet, the attendant from Buxa, and then Zina Rachevsky, the first Russian student—when we were together, I was thinking, “Who will die first?” I didn’t say anything, but I was thinking, “Who will die first?” I was thinking it as we were sitting around.
Even the Buddha wasn’t in the same aspect. He showed impermanence with the holy body.
Lama Yeshe passed away, a long time ago. Now you see only the bones, Lama’s relics. Losang Nyima is dead. Zina is dead. Lama Lhundrup—who was an excellent disciple of Lama Yeshe from Tibet, had excellent Dharma knowledge of philosophy, debate and all that, who was totally devoted to Lama, devoted to whatever Lama said, and had a stable mind, devotion—he passed away. Lama Pasang, who helped to build houses, bring food, and all that, also dead. So many already left the monastery.
Just from that you can understand. So at the moment we are in the process—I don’t know whether it is good or bad that we didn’t die yet. We are in the process, in the same process of dying. Every day we are in the same process.
Watch the video clip of Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching on death:
https://youtu.be/DlTsfbEce1I
Colophon: Excerpted from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings at Chenrezig Institute in Eudlo, Queensland, Australia, June 2, 2018. Simultaneously transcribed by Ven. Joan Nicell. Edited by Claire Isitt and Laura Miller, August 2018.
Find resources and advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche for time of death on the page “Death and Dying: Heart Practices and Advice”:
https://fpmt.org/death/
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 at Chenerzig Institute, Eudlo, Australia, June 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered this advice during a teaching at Chenrezig Institute in June 2018.
There are so many wars. Hundreds of thousands get killed again and again. So many people get killed by bombs. Then so many people escape, then the boat is full, then sinks in the ocean. They try to run away, they can’t do anything: it is unbelievable. The people in the world are suffering.
Syria is one example. It originated from one person not understanding that all came from his mind. Not understanding that the creator is one’s own mind. Can you imagine it? Millions and millions of people killed by the one person who has power, who did not realize this.
Your mind is the creator of everything, all the suffering and all the happiness. That person didn’t realize that, thinks all is coming from outside. So that is an unbelievably important education to help the world, to help to bring peace and happiness in the world.
So therefore we need Dharma centers giving teachings. Lamrim teachings, yes, but what it is all about is compassion. Teaching compassion, to practice compassion with sentient beings. With whom you practice compassion, with whom you generate compassion is sentient beings.
That is the essence of Buddhism, the Buddha’s teachings—to generate compassion not only to human beings, but to every single hell being, hungry ghost, animal, the tiniest and the big, like whales living in the ocean, the worms living under the earth, also the tiniest flies, which when you walk in the grass they run, jump away. There are numberless universes so there are numberless human beings, numberless sura beings, asura beings. Compassion to everyone—that is the essence of Buddhism. What differentiates it from others is that. To everyone, any sentient being, to have compassion, to never give them up, to have compassion for them.
Compassion means to not harm, and on top of that, if you can, to benefit. The motivation is compassion. If you want to practice Buddhism, you understand the conduct is to not harm sentient beings. And that comes from the right view, dependent arising, subtle dependent arising, which is unified with emptiness from its own side. The conduct comes from there—to not harm and to benefit sentient beings. That is often what His Holiness says. Now you can see that teaching Buddhism, through a course, or just talking about Buddhism to somebody, to explain compassion is the most important part.
Watch a clip of the teaching by Lama Zopa Rinpoche from which this advice is taken:
https://youtu.be/3V84cd4Cwcc?t=9m12s
A long time ago a million children were dying from no food in Africa—so much suffering, no rain coming, no water, drought. And even when the crops were there, suddenly a flood came and they were destroyed. So I thought to help. I thought first maybe to invite some lamas, some monks, to make it rain in Africa. I thought to invite them. Then I thought our students—here there are old students, Roger and Paula. I thought maybe to send them there to make it rain.
I translated lutor, Torma Offering to the Nagas, a long time ago. I didn’t translate it, I gave it to a Tibetan boy, a young man, to translate. He was a disciple of Tara Rinpoche. He translated it, and then I lost it. Then Paula found the translation in the Vajrapani Institute office. Then as it is advised there, she went to the mountains and did the puja to the nagas to make it rain. Then the rain did come, I heard that.
So I thought to send them to make rain. I also thought to invite lamas, monks there. I would sponsor them to make rain and then they would do puja to make it rain. But if the people don’t have good karma, it won’t work. If the people don’t have good karma, it won’t rain. To receive rain, it depends on having good karma. For everything, if it is happiness you have to have good karma. If you don’t have good karma, then you have to create good karma. Then you will achieve that happiness. You will experience it. You have to work through that.
People have to create good karma. So, how to do that? I was thinking about how to do that. I thought maybe I would go there, make friends with somebody in Africa. Talk about compassion to that person, so then that person is able to understand, then he can talk to his best friends about compassion, then they practice compassion. So little by little, three, four, five, then ten, like that, gradually, you talk about compassion, then they practice compassion, helping others. It doesn’t mean only people, but any sentient being. You practice compassion, to not harm and to help. So more and more people do that, and slowly it spreads, the positive actions, creating good karma. Then you make puja, a naga puja or whatever, then the rain will come.
You need to start like that. First you lead them in how to create good karma. You have to educate them to practice compassion. You need to do that a lot in the world. That is the most important thing, the most important education, the most important meditation to make the human being better, a better human being. To not become the cause of, to not become the creator of problems and suffering for yourself. You are human being this life, so don’t become a creator of problems in the world. To not become a creator of problems to all sentient beings, to the people in the world, to yourself, to your family, practice compassion. Then you become more and more a creator of happiness, peace, for you, your family, then your country, the world, all sentient beings. I thought like that but, sorry, I myself didn’t get to go there, to start like that.
So that’s what we need: teaching Buddhism, teaching Buddhadharma, establishing a center—a place where sentient beings can come to learn Dharma, to meditate, to purify and collect merits, to have realizations, a place where sentient beings open their minds, open their closed minds. The phenomena that they don’t see, to which they are closed, they become open to see all those phenomena—reincarnation and karma, all the rest of phenomena. Sentient beings are suffering—so therefore, what is needed is teaching Dharma, even to start a study group, no matter where you are living in the world, to study.
If you know some meditation, if you know lamrim, study it a little bit. Even just two or three people, to learn, to go through the lamrim, meditate and read and discuss is so important. So more people gain compassion. You aim for that. Not just learning to feed your intelligence, but to develop compassion. Your aim should be that: for you and also for other people to develop compassion. That is so good. It is so important. The more you learn compassion, then you give less harm to others, less harm and the more benefit to others. That is your source of achieving happiness up to enlightenment. It is the source of you achieving happiness up to enlightenment, for you and every sentient being; for you, and you cause that for every sentient being. Unbelievable.
You can see now you have to think in this way, of the proper motivation to have Dharma centers. Compassion is the most important. Even a Dharma study group, even one person, even one sentient being, to open the mind, to learn Dharma, to awaken the mind, to wake up the sleeping mind, the ignorant mind, even to help one person, one sentient being, even that is so important, unbelievably important. Teaching compassion, that brings them to enlightenment. That makes them have the opportunity to achieve enlightenment, the final goal. Wow wow wow.
On the last day of the Diamond Valley course, Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche, with their guest the English monk Phra Kantipalo, went with students to the land that would become Chenrezig Institute for an incense puja, Eudlo, Australia, September 1974. Photo courtesy Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
For example, Chenrezig Institute has benefited numberless sentient beings since it started. Since the beginning of the course in Diamond Valley* and up to now, so many sentient beings have come to learn Dharma, have come to meditate, have come to purify the cause of suffering, and create the merits, the cause of all happiness up to enlightenment—coming to Chenrezig Institute to learn Dharma, the whole path to enlightenment.
Since the course in Diamond Valley up to now, so many sentient beings got benefit. They purified the cause of suffering, samsara and lower realms. It is amazing, amazing. So many practiced renunciation of the cause of suffering, renouncing attachment, renouncing anger, ignorance. So many, so many, so many practiced bodhichitta, even if they didn’t have the realization but did the meditation. So many created the cause to achieve nirvana, to be free, liberated from samsara. Sooooooooooooo many sentient beings starting from the Diamond Valley course up to now, so many created the cause to achieve nirvana, to be liberated from samsara.
So many sentient beings meditated on, thought about, bodhichitta. They generated bodhichitta, even if it was not the actual realization. Every time they generate bodhichitta, it becomes the cause of enlightenment. Each time they generate bodhichitta, the cause of enlightenment, they create the cause to bring enlightenment to numberless sentient beings. That includes their own families, the numberless sentient beings, numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, then numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless asuras, numberless suras, numberless intermediate state beings, to bring enlightenment to them.
They created the cause of enlightenment from the Diamond Valley course up to now, wow wow wow. Just from Chenrezig Institute, so many.
Colophon: Excerpted from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings at Chenrezig Institute in Eudlo, Queensland, Australia, June 2, 2018. Simultaneously transcribed by Ven. Joan Nicell. Edited by Claire Isitt and Laura Miller, August 2018.
*The Diamond Valley course was the first Australian teaching event by Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. It took place August 30–September 28, 1974, in Diamond Valley, located not far the present-day Chenrezig Institute, in southeast Queensland, Australia.
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 having lunch at FPMT International Office, Portland, Oregon, US, August 2018. Photo by Diana Ospina.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche spoke about the FPMT organization during a teaching at Chenrezig Institute, Australia, in June 2018.
I think that although Lama Yeshe started the FPMT organization, His Holiness the Dalai Lama is the head of the organization.
Now the organization is okay. Many studied the Masters Program, the Basic Program, many, many things. Now it is better. But some time before it was very easy for the organization to become a New Age shop, where you buy all kinds of things. Some people don’t check much, so it would have been very easy for the FPMT to become a New Age shop. Before, there was this danger.
Now it is safer because people have studied Buddhism very extensively, very deeply. We have forty-six resident geshes, who studied in those most famous monasteries from their youth, who practiced and did very extensive study of Dharma. So the FPMT is more stable; it is better now.
So the top is His Holiness. The one we follow is His Holiness, Chenrezig. Then it is good. Many people, many students, die as the years go by. But the top, the leader who is the top of all FPMT, is His Holiness.
That helps to prevent the FPMT from becoming a New Age shop. Otherwise there is danger. People don’t check well, so there was great danger before. With the very qualified virtuous friends, the teachers, and the study being done more and more, it is more stable, not a New Age shop.
We need to protect the organization, to make it most beneficial for sentient beings. That is very, very important.
Now I was thinking also to put effort into retreat, into actualizing the lamrim path. Not just counting the number of mantras, but retreat on lamrim, actualizing the path to enlightenment. What you studied extensively during those past years, now you actualize it.
Those who study lamrim, try to actualize in your heart rather than always keeping it in the book. While your heart is empty of Dharma, your heart is empty of realization. So not like that, with the lamrim only in the book but not in your heart.
To have bodhichitta in the heart, renunciation, right view, tantra—even to have the realizations of the sutras—even if one person, even if one or two or three have realizations, they can benefit unbelievably, like the sun rising in the world.
There is one sun in the world but when it rises, insects, people, animals can enjoy it. Like that it would help so much even if one or two people have realizations—unbelievable, unbelievable, especially bodhichitta.
Watch a video clip of the teaching by Lama Zopa Rinpoche from which this advice is taken:
https://youtu.be/DlTsfbEce1I?t=7m40s
Colophon: Excerpted from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings at Chenrezig Institute in Eudlo, Queensland, Australia, June 2, 2018. Simultaneously transcribed by Ven. Joan Nicell. Edited by Claire Isitt and Laura Miller, August 2018.
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 at Kurukulla Center, Medford, Massachusetts, US, August 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered thanks to all the FPMT centers, projects, services, and students who did practices requested by Rinpoche to benefit Tibet and for the success of fulfilling all of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s wishes.
I felt that we need to help, as we are His Holiness’ disciples.
Of course, “guru”—that means all our happiness, past, present, and future up to enlightenment, came from the guru: His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Every single pleasure, happiness, came from His Holiness. His Holiness has guided us from beginningless rebirths, now, and in the future. Can you imagine the kindness of the guru? The kindness of the guru is like the limitless sky.
I felt to help Tibet, so I suggested these prayers:
- The Mantra Promised by Tara
- The Four Mandala Offerings to Tara
I want to say a billion, zillion, numberless thanks, really from my heart, to everybody who did the prayers to help His Holiness, to help Tibet to receive soon freedom. So thank you very, very much. Thank you so much.
This is the most extensive way to collect merit and the most powerful purification—fulfilling the guru’s wishes.
It is said by Sakya Pandita, “For a thousand eons, you make charity of your heads and your legs to other sentient beings. Then even the merits, you dedicate for sentient beings.” You do like that for a thousand eons. “But all those merits you collect in one second when you fulfill the guru’s wishes and the guru’s advice.”
You collect all those merits in one second. The guru’s path, if you fulfill all those, one-thousand-eon merits you collect in one second. When you fulfill the guru’s wishes and advice, this is also what happens.
Then also it is said in tantra, Kadam Tigle, “As fire burns wood and in one second it becomes ashes, like that the glorified guru if you are able to please, if you please the guru, the heavy negative karma gets burned by that. By following the guru, by pleasing the guru, it is burned in one second.”
It gets purified in one second. The heavy negative karma collected from past lives and now gets purified in one second. Oh, it is so powerful, this happens.
I think that’s all. Thank you very much.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche Offering Thanks:
https://youtu.be/DPiIR8NN6fQ
Rinpoche made the request in June 2018 that 50,000 recitations of the Mantra Promised by the Arya Mother Liberator Herself and 500 Four Mandala Offering to Tara pujas be done by July 12.
FPMT centers, projects, services, and students completed 340,941 mantra recitations and 7,298 Four Mandala Offering to Tara pujas!
Rinpoche recorded the video message of thanks on August 20, 2018, in Boston, Massachusetts, US.
Watch teachings from Lama Zopa Rinpoche, including recent teachings at Kurukulla Center and Maitripa College, online:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/
More information, photos, teaching schedule, 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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Chenrezig Institute, Eudlo, Australia, June 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered this advice during a teaching at Chenrezig Institute in June 2018.
For older students, when you are looking for spiritual happiness, Dharma happiness, inner happiness—not the ordinary happiness that you have had numberless times already, in this life and from beginningless rebirths—I think the most important thing is if you live life every day with the basis that your mind is where all the sufferings came from.
All the oceans of six-realm sufferings, the oceans of hell realm, hungry ghost, animal, human being, sura, and asura sufferings—all came from your mind. All happiness came from your mind. Your mind is the creator of everything. That is the most important thing. For the older students, even though you have heard that, then you have to live life with that recognition as the main basis. I think if it is the main basis, it helps unbelievably. It helps to bring immediate peace and happiness in your heart, in your life.
Even though it is really the basic thing, you older students who received many teachings, studied many subjects, if you don’t live in that philosophy, that basic understanding, then even though you studied so many philosophical subjects, Madhyamaka, and this and that, Abhisamayalamkarika, this and that tantra subjects, studied so much, if you think the creator is outside, not you, not your mind, if you think that happiness and problems are coming from outside, as long as you think they are coming from outside, then you are the same as people who never heard Dharma, never studied Dharma.
You are the same as the insects, the worms. What do insects think? They think everything came from outside, not from the mind, but from outside. So you are no different from worms, insects. Then you create so many problems in your life, so many problems. Then you continuously find an enemy in the world. You find an enemy in your family. Everywhere you find an enemy.
As you know from Bodhicharyavatara, if you are going to cover the whole earth with leather, there is not enough leather to cover the whole earth. But if you cover your feet, you wear leather shoes, wherever you walk thorns don’t go through. It is like you covered the whole earth. You didn’t cover the whole earth, but it is like that. No thorn can go into your feet if you are wearing leather shoes. Like that, if you don’t have anger, then you have no enemy outside. You can’t find one anywhere.
At the house in Aptos we have a car and on the back I put a label in big writing: “No anger, no enemy.” So on the car that becomes a good teaching, good advertising. It is the best advertising.
Watch a clip of the teaching by Lama Zopa Rinpoche from which this advice is taken:
https://youtu.be/3V84cd4Cwcc
Colophon: Excerpted from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings at Chenrezig Institute in Eudlo, Queensland, Australia, June 2, 2018. Simultaneously transcribed by Ven. Joan Nicell. Edited by Claire Isitt and Laura Miller, August 2018.
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 walking to Dra Karpo temple, the holy site of Guru Rinpoche’s body in Pharo, Bhutan, June 2016. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
A student was taking time off after serving at a center for ten years and was planning to do a walking retreat for several months. Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered this advice:
Yes, doing 200,000 Vajrasattva mantras as you walk is very good. You can do this as if you are making pilgrimage, and at the same time you can do a sort of retreat, like Vajrasattva, while you are walking. Also you can do things like refuge or reciting OM MANI PADME HUM and so forth.
Many years ago, His Holiness the Dalai Lama gave Chenrezig initiation and the commitment was 600,000 recitations of OM MANI PADME HUM. I met a very learned, expert monk in philosophy who had taken the initiation. He was making pilgrimage in Nepal and at the same time reciting OM MANI PADME HUM, the commitment he had received from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He did this while he was travelling. Of course he was very busy at his monastery, reading texts, teaching and educating others, and learning himself. So he did the commitment immediately like this, with pilgrimage in Nepal.
Family, Bhutan, June 2016. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
It’s incredible to use the time like this. It’s so profitable and meaningful, instead of complaining, “I can’t get it done. I don’t have time, blah, blah,” but at the same time having so much time for gossiping and many other things, like eating, drinkingand so forth.
Also during the walk or pilgrimage or while travelling, you can, for example, do lamrim meditation. It’s not always necessary to be in a room, sitting on a cushion and closing your eyes. You don’t always need to do that.
Dzongdrakha, place of Guru Rinpoche’s mind, Paro, Bhutan, June 2016. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
You can follow the lamrim outline on guru devotion for however many months you are travelling. Meditate on guru devotion by following the outline, to develop from your side the realization that sees the guru as all the buddhas—one guru as all the buddhas and one buddha as all the gurus—until you are able to realize this from your side, without effort, stable.
Whenever you have this stable realization for weeks, months and years, for your whole life, then come all the realizations up to omniscience, including the three principal aspects of the path (the foundation) and tantra (the two stages) up to the omniscient mind. Then you can even achieve enlightenment in one life. You can achieve enlightenment quickly, in a brief lifetime of this degenerate time, like Gyalwa Ensapa, Chökyi Dorje, Milarepa and many others.
This advice, “Retreat While Walking or Traveling,” is from “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book,” published in May 2018 on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/retreat-while-walking-or-travelling
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 lunch before a flight with Sangha members Ven. Lobsang Sherab, Ven. Topgye, Geshe Lhundup Tsundu, Ven. Thubten Tendar, and Ven. Holly Ansett, Delhi, India, February 2018. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
In a short video clip from a teaching given at the 2016 Light of the Path retreat, Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains the benefits of living in vows.
Rinpoche teaches that taking vows is so powerful that it’s mentioned that right after taking vows, before they have degenerated, any prayers you make are fulfilled.
Whether one is a novice monk or nun with thirty-six vows, a fully ordained monk with 253 vows, a fully ordained nun, or a lay person holding vows such as the eight Mahayana precepts, Rinpoche emphasizes the importance of living in your vows: “For you it is unbelievable, unbelievable! Then for numberless sentient beings, if you dedicate with bodhichitta for sentient beings, wow, wow, wow!”
By keeping a larger number of vows, your prayers are even more powerful. Rinpoche explains that this is why people living in Buddhist countries like Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Myanmar ask monasteries and nunneries to do prayers and pujas for people who have died, are sick, and are experiencing difficulties in business and so forth. Rinpoche notes that people also ask the Tibetan monasteries and nunneries.
“You see the difference, living in vows, which are such powerful objects,” Rinpoche says. “You understand the point. Then all these, it is unbelievable, so beneficial for sentient beings—even prayers and pujas, whatever you do—they are so powerful for sentient beings.”
“First you take the precepts, and as you take more and more precepts, you become more and more powerful for sentient beings. For sentient beings you are like Dzambala, bringing wealth and all the prayers for sentient beings. This happens because you are living in pure vows, taking higher ordination.”
“Because your prayers and pujas are so powerful, when sentient beings make offerings they collect so much merit. So it helps so much. It is so easy to have success for others, like Dzambala bringing success, wealth, and so forth.”
Rinpoche teaches that having a precious human rebirth, and especially if you are a member of the Sangha, then you must realize it is incredible and unbelievable how much you can benefit sentient being: “You should rejoice! You should enjoy your life! You should rejoice in your life all the time!”
By realizing the benefits, Rinpoche says, there is no room in your heart or mind for depression for even an hour or a minute; you are only full of joy.
Watch “Living in Vows Makes Your Life So Precious” on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/77QB_qjCDPQ
The quotes from Lama Zopa Rinpoche have been edited and are based on the unedited transcript of the 2016 Light of the Path retreat, which you can find here with video recordings of the complete teachings:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/light-of-the-path-teachings-2016/
Find and watch video from all of Rinpoche’s recent teachings events, including from Chan Tong Chen Tong Centre in Tasmania and the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion in Bendigo, Australia:
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 media team members Alexis, Tione, Ven. Rinchen, and Harald, Light of the Path retreat, August 2016. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
In this short video clip from a teaching given at the 2016 Light of the Path retreat, Lama Zopa Rinpoche urges us to liberate ourselves from samsara. Rinpoche instructs us that when our husband or wife meets somebody and has a relationship with that person, we have to remember the six shortcomings of samsara.
“There is nothing definite in samsara; the friend, enemy, stranger changes. In the morning they are a friend, in the evening an enemy, in the afternoon a friend, in the evening an enemy, today a friend, tomorrow an enemy, a friend this week, next week an enemy, this month a friend, next month enemy, this year friend, next year friend,” Rinpoche says.
Our relationship with that person also changes from life to life, and it has been like this from beginningless rebirths. Rinpoche says, “In beginningless samsara you have been friends, enemies, and strangers numberless times. You see, that is the nature of samsara.”
Rinpoche continues, “If you yourself are free from samsara then you don’t have to be attached. If you don’t have to be attached, then you don’t have to be angry. You are unattached. You don’t need it at all. You are totally free.”
Rinpoche then explains where we made our mistake. “Because you didn’t actualize the four noble truths, the true cause of suffering, true cessation, and the true path; because of that mistake, you are still in samsara; and torture yourself all the time,” he says. “I have to say it that way, otherwise it is just words, the lamrim is just words. It is really talking about life, so you need to practice.”
He recommends starting with renunciation and not thinking that the other person is torturing us: “No, think that it is your own problem because in the past life you didn’t actualize the path. In this life you didn’t actualize the path.”
Next, practice bodhichitta. “That sentient being is totally controlled by attachment. It is the same as being possessed by a spirit. You need to help them. As you meditate on kindness while walking, it is so important to help, to practice kindness.”
Then, reflect on emptiness. Rinpoche says, “All the rest is hallucination. There can be great peace when you think of hallucination. We don’t have to speak of tantra; just lamrim is amazing.”
Watch “The Six Shortcomings of Samsara” on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/t6J73iyuTxw
The quotes from Lama Zopa Rinpoche have been edited and are based on the unedited transcript of the 2016 Light of the Path retreat, which you can find here with video recordings of the complete teachings:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/light-of-the-path-teachings-2016/
Find and watch video from all of Rinpoche’s recent teachings events, including from Chan Tong Chen Tong Centre in Tasmania and the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion in Bendigo, Australia:
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 arriving at Buddha House, Adelaide, Australia, May 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
In this short video clip from a teaching given at the 2016 Light of the Path retreat, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, while explaining the meaning of a Tibetan phase, discusses the importance of studying one path well in order to avoid confusion and the degeneration of one’s wisdom.
“Keep your wisdom in the pure path,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche instructs. “Pure view, pure conduct, a subdued mind, wisdom.”
In order to do this, Rinpoche advises to not dilute and confuse your efforts by trying many types of teachings.
“You start this, then start this, start this, start this,” Rinpoche says with this hand gesturing in different directions. “Then your wisdom is not set in the best direction, best view, best conduct.”
You even become unsure and unclear about Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings, Rinpoche explains. When you try different things, “at the end you are lost, at the end you are not sure, you are confused.”
However, after studying well on one path and making sure that you have correct meditation, conduct, and view, Rinpoche says, then when you learn about other paths, due to that correct basis, you are able to understand, to recognize other methods and paths, and to be able to discriminate between them.
It is like going to a buffet at a restaurant and tasting all the different food. If you do that with the teachings, you could end up like someone for whom Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings mean nothing.
“What is mediation, what is conduct, what is pure view—the real path,” Rinpoche warns that those things could mean nothing to you. “You are lost.”
Watch “Keep Your Wisdom with Pure View and Conduct” on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/i_Xr4CuIb00
The quotes from Lama Zopa Rinpoche have been edited and are based on the unedited transcript of the 2016 Light of the Path retreat, which you can find here with video recordings of the complete teachings:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/light-of-the-path-teachings-2016/
Find and watch video from all of Rinpoche’s recent teachings events, including from Chan Tong Chen Tong Centre in Tasmania and the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion in Bendigo, Australia:
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.