Advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche

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.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche giving a teaching at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, Bendigo, Australia, April 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave advice about paying government tax and health insurance, instructing to see it as an opportunity to practice charity, thus a cause for happiness and full enlightenment, for oneself and others.

I spoke to the ex-Kopan monks and nuns in New York, in a restaurant run by people from Mustang. I talked to one Nepalese girl who had previously worked in Nepal for one year. She told me that after she got money from working in the United States, a lot of the money went as tax to the US government, in federal and state tax, and also for Medicare and health insurance. I gave her this advice about using every opportunity to become Dharma, especially Mahayana Dharma, so that it becomes the cause of enlightenment.

You have to pay tax to the state and federal government, as well as  paying Medicare and health insurance, and then you feel resentful and become miserly, which is the cause of poverty. Also, by creating so much miserliness you become unhappy, but you have no choice because you have to give the money.

I said this is a most incredible opportunity for you to practice Dharma. By giving tax to the state and federal government you can use this as a method of giving charity and generating bodhichitta. When you have to make the payments, you can think about the purpose of paying this money.

Think, “May I myself achieve enlightenment in order to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings in the six realms and bring them to buddhahood—the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations. Therefore, I am making charity of this money.”

Thinking this way is incredible. This way, not only does it become Dharma, but it becomes the cause of oneself achieving buddhahood. It also becomes the cause of happiness for numberless sentient beings, to free them from oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to buddhahood—the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations. Therefore this becomes the cause of happiness. Wow, wow, wow, wow. Amazing, amazing, amazing. This becomes the best cause of happiness up to full enlightenment.

According to the Tengyur, Buddha said:

For any sentient being, who during the period of my teachings
Makes charity well (even if the material is the size of a hair)
For 80,000 eons will experience a great result of great enjoyment:
No pain, no disease, and enjoyment of happiness.
Like that, one will be enriched with the desirable things.
At the end you can actually achieve the result—the peerless cessation and completion (enlightenment).
After hearing that there is a great result, who wouldn’t want to collect merit?

Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow!

Here it mentions in the quotation that by making charity of something just the size of one single hair, you receive benefits for 80,000 eons. You will have unbelievable happiness and wealth, most unbelievable happiness, and also by continually making charity, at the end you will achieve enlightenment. Here the charity that you make is much more than money. It is unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable, so you can rejoice, you can feel very happy. It’s unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable.

It’s the same when you pay the health insurance and Medicare, because even though you are not sick all the time, there are many other sick people, who have cancer or incurable or curable diseases. The money goes for that, so again you are making charity. Wow, wow, wow, wow! So you should rejoice.

It’s unbelievable, it’s like the person who wins the soccer game—they are running around, all the nerves out, their shoulders up. In reality that is all done with attachment, so it’s the cause of the lower realms, but expressing happiness here, this is for enlightenment—full enlightenment for oneself and then to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to full enlightenment. Wow, wow, wow, wow!

It is very important to think this way, to use the situation of paying tax and so forth as a way to create the cause of enlightenment.

This advice, “Motivation for Paying Tax,” is from “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book,” published in January 2018 on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/motivation-paying-tax

Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche teach during the Heart of Wisdom Retreat at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion in Bendigo, Australia, March 30-May 12, 2018!

• Find links to watch teachings LIVE:
  https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/
• Watch, read, and listen to all of Rinpoche’s teachings from Bendigo at anytime: 
  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 in Moscow, Russia, May 2017. Photo by Renat Alyaudinov.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche composed a long and detailed letter for FPMT Annual Review 2017: Serving the Teachings of the Buddha. We’re happy to share part of Rinpoche’s four-page letter, which was written in January 2018 in Tso Pema, Himachal Pradesh, India: 

My most precious, most kind, most dear, wish-fulfilling directors, students, benefactors, and friends,

Here, I am dropping some news from the sky—for some it will be new, for some it will be old teachings.

Firstly, from the bottom of my heart and bones, thank you numberless times for all your service; dedication; practice of holy Dharma with your body, speech, and mind; and for your devotion and good heart.

The ultimate aim is to benefit sentient beings, whose minds are obscured and suffering, and for them to achieve happiness in this life and happiness in future lives, then the ultimate happiness of liberation from samsara and of buddhahood, the total cessation of obscurations and completion of realizations. Therefore, sentient beings receive all the peace and happiness up to enlightenment by serving the teachings of Buddha, so that the teachings exist continually and develop, and also by serving the Sangha, who preserve and spread Dharma in this world.

So here, mostly we have been able to help by building monasteries and nunneries, making offerings to holy objects, helping the Sangha with Dharma education and survival, and offering help to the elderly and to schools.

As Buddha said:

Any sentient being who, during the period of my teachings,
Makes charity well (even if the material is the size of a hair),
For 80,000 eons there will be great results of great enjoyment:
No pain, no disease, and enjoyment of happiness.
Like that, one will be enriched with the desirable things.
At the end, you can actually achieve the result: the peerless cessation and completion (enlightenment).

After hearing that there is this great result, who wouldn’t want to collect merit? This is just to get some idea of the benefits.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche blessing the fish in the lake and doing prayers, Tso Pema, India, January 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Now, in regard to making offerings to the guru, and not just me Guru Mickey Mouse, but to anyone from whom you have received Dharma contact with the recognition of guru-disciple: Just by offering scented smell to the pores of the guru’s holy body you collect so much unbelievable merit, more than from having made extensive offerings to numberless Buddha, Dharma, Sangha and numberless statues, stupas, and scriptures. 

As I normally mention, compared to other people, your own parents are a more powerful object with which to collect merit. That’s why you can experience the result in this life of whatever service you did for your parents in this life. The good karma is so powerful that you can start to experience the result—happiness and success—in this life. The negative karma that is created in relation to your parents, such as by complaining to or harming your parents, even a very little, is very, very heavy, and you start to experience the suffering in this life. You experience the suffering result not only in this life but in future lives as well for 500 lifetimes.

After that, ordained Sangha are a more powerful object than your parents. Then more powerful than ordained Sangha are arhats. Then more powerful than numberless arhats is one bodhisattva, one who has generated bodhichitta. It is said by Buddha in the sutras and also quoted in the lamrim commentaries that if you don’t have bodhichitta and you glare at a bodhisattva just one time, the negative karma is so heavy that it is like having taken out the eyeballs of all the sentient beings of the three realms (desire realm, form realm, and formless realm). If you look at one bodhisattva with a devoted, calm mind, with respectful eyes, then you collect merit like having made charity of your eyes to all the sentient beings in the three realms. (This is in regard to how one bodhisattva is extremely powerful, more powerful than numberless arhats, whether you harm the bodhisattva or make offerings or offer service.)

After that, even more powerful is one buddha. One buddha is more powerful than numberless bodhisattvas. From even a small act of disrespect towards one buddha, the negative karma is unbelievably heavy; and from just a little service, a little respect toward one buddha, the result is unbelievable happiness. This is because one buddha is more powerful than numberless bodhisattvas.

Tso Pema, Himachal Pradesh, India, January 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Now to the guru—not just anyone known in the world as a guru but the guru with whom you have a Dharma connection, a guru-disciple connection—offering just a little service, as I mentioned before, has the greatest benefit, more benefit than from making offerings to numberless Buddha, Dharma, Sangha and numberless statues, stupas, and scriptures. This is not just offering the guru service, but also fulfilling the guru’s wishes and advice.

It is mentioned in the lamrim teachings that each time one makes an offering to the guru, even a small nut or a glass of water, one becomes closer to enlightenment. So, you have to figure out the value of the rest, such as offering service and the offerings that you make, from this. Then, there is no hesitation to say that you do the greatest purification and collect the greatest merit by fulfilling the guru’s wishes and following his advice and teachings. For example, every day, every hour, every minute, every second that you keep your vows or recite mantras or offer any service, you become closer and closer to enlightenment. …

Read the entire letter from Lama Zopa Rinpoche in FPMT Annual Review 2017:
https://issuu.com/fpmtinc/docs/fpmt_ar_2017_issuu/2

We invite you to read FPMT Annual Review 2017: Serving the Teachings of the Buddha, now available online in eZine and PDF formats:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/annual-review/

See photo highlights from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s 2017:
https://fpmt.org/teachers/zopa/gallery/lama-zopa-rinpoches-2017/

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche during a visit to the stupa at Sarnath, India, January 2017. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

By generating a bodhichitta motivation throughout each day, we can benefit ourselves and sentient beings, Lama Zopa Rinpoche explained while teaching at the 100 Million Mani Mantra Retreat in Italy.

Rinpoche’s advice, captured in a video clip from the October 10, 2017, teaching, emphasizes that by having a bodhichitta motivation in any number of activities, you are able to generate heaps of merit and become profoundly beneficial.  

Making Offerings

“Of course if you have an actual realization of bodhichitta, there is no question of merit,” Rinpoche says. “But even if you have an effortful motivation of bodhichitta, when you offer light—one light, even one Christmas light, whatever light, a butter lamp, one candle—you collect merits more than the sky. Wow, wow, wow!”

Circumambulating Holy Objects

Rinpoche says, “If you generate a bodhichitta motivation when you circumambulate, with each step going around circumambulating, you collect merits more than the sky.”

Eating and Drinking

“When you eat food, with each bite or drink, if it is done with a motivation of bodhichitta, then you are eating food for sentient beings, to serve sentient beings, to bring them to enlightenment,” Rinpoche says.

“And then also to make offering, make yourself in oneness with the guru-deity Chenrezig. Visualize Chenrezig in your heart, same as the guru. So with each bite, with each drink, you collect more than skies of merit. You collect with each spoonful, with each sip, merits more than the sky.”

Speaking

“If you generate the motivation of bodhichitta for when you talk, whether you are consulting, whether you are teaching Dharma, if you generate the motivation of bodhichitta, not even the realization, but effortful bodhichitta, then with each word you collect merits more than sky,” Rinpoche advises.

Walking

Rinpoche adds, “The same thing as circumambulation, when you are going for a walk, going shopping, going for pilgrimage, whatever, if it is done with a bodhichitta motivation, then with each step you collect more than skies of merits.”

The Best Motivation Is Bodhichitta

“As the Buddha said, to work for yourself and others, numberless sentient beings, the best motivation is bodhichitta. So all the buddhas, they checked, they see, it is like that,” Rinpoche says.

“Even if you don’t have a realization of bodhichitta, but you generate a bodhichitta motivation, for any activity you do—in every minute, in every second—you collect merits more than the sky! There is no time for depression. There is no space for depression. Depression, goodbye!”

Your Main Refuge Is Bodhichitta

If you pay attention to having a bodhichitta motivation throughout your life, your whole day, and with every activity, then it is your main practice and your main refuge.

Rinpoche explains, “When your life is so busy, your main refuge is bodhichitta. So every hour—not only every day, every hour, every minute, every second—is bodhichitta.” By doing this, you create so much merit, “more than the sky! Amazing, amazing!”

“By generating the motivation of bodhichitta, then when you do prayers all day long or for one hour, with each word you collect more than skies of merit. Can you imagine?” Rinpoche asks.

“You have to realize how you are most unbelievably fortunate! You are so fortunate. You are so fortunate this time. Next, next life not sure, but this life ….”

Rinpoche concludes, “With a bodhichitta motivation, whatever you are doing, working for the center, working for the company or the family, with bodhichitta, the merits you create, wow, wow, wow!”

To see Rinpoche giving this teaching, watch the video “Practicing Dharma Skillfully with Bodhichitta: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTcHrkEP8I8

The quotes from Rinpoche have been lightly edited and are based on the unedited transcript of the 100 Million Mani Mantra retreat in Italy, which you can find here with video recordings of the complete teachings:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/100-million-mani-mantra-retreat-2017/

Find more video clips from Lama Zopa Rinpoche:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5F6A5E3C2873F2EA

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 talking with a person begging on the street after making an offering, Moscow, Russia, May 2017. Photo by Renat Alyaudinov.

When making charity to people who are begging, Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches, first think of bodhichitta. In a short video clip recorded during the 2017 Light of the Path retreat, Rinpoche explains that one should think, “The purpose of my life is to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsara and bring them to peerless happiness, buddhahood. Therefore, I must achieve state of omniscience. Therefore, I must make charity.”

“Then, think that all the past, present, and future happiness up to enlightenment came from that sentient beings. Think of the kindness,” Rinpoche says.

“Then after that, think of the three-times happiness you receive from this beggar, who is most precious, most kind, most dear, most wish-fulfilling. Trying to think like that is good.”

When making the offering, Rinpoche says, “I try to remember to make the offerings respectfully, with two hands. I offer to them like this, with the two hands.”

“Then when you offer, if possible, seal the offering with emptiness,” Rinpoche explains. “[Think that] I and the action of giving and to whom you are giving are empty. They do not exist from their own sides as they appear to you. Looking at emptiness, ultimate reality, you offer.”

So when charity is offered not only with bodhichitta but with emptiness, Rinpoche explains, “it becomes the remedy to samsara. Your charity becomes the remedy to samsara.”

“Then, you see, it becomes most pleasing. It becomes the best offering,” Rinpoche concludes.
“It becomes the offering to all the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—numberless Buddha, numberless Dharma, numberless Sangha.”

Watch Rinpoche teach on “How to Think When Making Charity to Beggars”:
https://youtu.be/_9d-ok1xows

Quoted text based on the unedited transcript for the 2017 Light for 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-2017/

Find more video clips from Lama Zopa Rinpoche:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5F6A5E3C2873F2EA

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 Sera Je Monastery, India, November 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

“Even when you wash, you purify not only yourself but sentient beings. Not only are your obscurations purified, but all sentient beings’ obscurations are purified. For example, the first time washing with water, the disturbing thought obscurations are purified. Then, by putting soap, then washing the subtle obscurations, shedrib, of all sentient beings, not only yours, all sentient beings are purified,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches in this video clip, recorded during the 100 Million Mani Mantra Retreat in Italy in October 2017.

“So you can think the same thing when you clean with soap the teeth. First purify the nyondrib, disturbing thought obscurations, yours and all sentient beings. Then second, put the toothpaste and washing, then subtle obscurations purified, not only yours and all sentient beings as well, like that. …

“There is no business in the world that can compete with bodhichitta benefits. So with the motivation of bodhichitta any action you do, then always increases and causes enlightenment. And after enlightenment what you can do is amazing, amazing, amazing. …”

Watch the entire teaching on “How to Think When Washing or Brushing Your Teeth”:
https://youtu.be/7o8_-TmHW2g

Watch complete teachings—with translations in French, Italian, and Spanish, as well as English transcripts—from the 100 Million Mani Mantra Retreat in Italy:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/100-million-mani-mantra-retreat-2017/

Find more video clips from Lama Zopa Rinpoche:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5F6A5E3C2873F2EA

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 in front of the Chenrezig statue at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, October 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

During the 100 Million Mani Mantra Retreat in Pomaia, Italy, Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave the following advice to control the wildfires in California:

Everybody should make strong prayers to Chenrezig to purify all the six-realm sentient beings—their negative karma and defilements collected since beginningless rebirths up to now—in this world and in California in particular. The fire depends on the wind. It seems that the wind there is strong and so the fire continues. Therefore, we need to make strong prayers to Chenrezig, visualizing nectar like a waterfall on the six realms, on this world, and on California in particular. Visualize that the fires are immediately stopped and the wind is controlled. Make strong prayers.

[Rinpoche instructed retreat participants to recite the long dharani of Chenrezig sixty times.]

Long Dharani of Chenrezig

NAMO RATNA TRAYĀYA / NAMA ĀRYA JÑĀNA SĀGARA VAIROCHANA VYŪHA RĀJĀYA / TATHĀGATĀYA / ARHATE / SAMYAKSAṂ BUDDHĀYA / NAMAḤ SARVA TATHĀGATEBHYAḤ / ARHATBHYAḤ SAMYAKSAṂ BUDDHEBHYAḤ / NAMA ĀRYA AVALOKITEŚHVARĀYA / BODHISATTVĀYA / MAHĀSATTVĀYA / MAHĀKĀRUṆIKĀYA / TADYATHĀ / OṂ DHARA DHARA / DHIRI DHIRI / DHURU DHURU / IṬṬE VAṬṬE / CHALE CHALE / PRACHALE PRACHALE / KUSUME / KUSUMA / VARE / ILI MILI / CHITI JVALAMAPANAYA SVĀHĀ

After reciting, think that all the people’s negative karma to be affected by the fire is totally purified. Think that all the negative karma to be burned and killed by fire is totally stopped and purified. Then, think that all the negative karma of the people who died in the fire is purified at the same time. Pray: “I request to Chenrezig that they not be reborn in the lower realms and to be born instead in the pure land of a buddha, where they can become enlightened. At the very least, may they receive a perfect human body, meet Mahayana teachings, meet a perfectly qualified Mahayana guru revealing the unmistaken path to enlightenment, and achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible.”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave this advice during the October 16, 2017, evening session of the 100 Million Mani Mantra Retreat at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, Italy. Transcribed by Ven. Joan Nicell. Edited by Mandala.

The 100 Million Mani Retreat at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Italy began on October 4. You can watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche teach live on YouTube and Facebook. For links and details:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/

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.