Advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche

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.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Light of the Path, Black Mountain, North Carolina, US, September 2017. Photo by Kalleen Mortensen.

During a session on September 4 at the Light on the Path retreat, Lama Zopa Rinpoche taught on several topics, including continuing a translation of Nagarjuna’s Praise to Satisfy Sentient Beings. From that, Rinpoche spoke to participants about the importance of working at Dharma centers. What follows is an edited version of Rinpoche’s advice on serving sentient being through working for an FPMT center.

You can see that working for the FPMT organization, working for the Dharma center wherever you are, is not just physical work—making a road or building a house or something. (Although even that can be for sentient beings!) Do you understand how bringing the wisdom light of Dharma to the minds of sentient beings—which are like a dark room where they have suffered continuously without end since beginningless rebirths—is so important? How bringing the light of Dharma to the darkness of their hearts and minds is so important?

In the center, whatever you are doing—whether you are the director, the assistant director, the bookkeeper, the cook, the cleaner—is for sentient beings. You are working for sentient beings. You have to keep your mind as Buddha explained and as Nagarjuna explained in Praise to Satisfying Sentient Beings. What you are doing and what has been explained is the same, not opposite.

So, think in your heart about sentient beings. Then, work and benefit sentient beings through whatever work you do. That is what is most pleasing to Buddha’s holy mind. That is what is most pleasing to numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas. It is most pleasing to the guru—His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lama Yeshe, and so forth. Do you understand? Working for sentient beings is most pleasing to them. Do you see now what is being talked about here in Praise to Satisfying Sentient Beings?

You have to realize that you are not wasting your time, your life. If you go to the beach, you lay your naked body down and spend hours and hours—all day long—there. Then you get into the water, like the sharks. Before, many of those sharks were naked people on the beach. The sharks have been naked people on the beach numberless times. (As I told you, the fish and fishermen trade places, the animals and butchers trade places.) Each person has his own trip of what “pleasure” means. There are all kinds in the world. So now think: “Do I prefer that, or, helping the FPMT Dharma organization and the FPMT centers?”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Light of the Path, September 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

In an FPMT center, there is a resident teacher who teaches lamrim philosophy—either simply or complexly—whatever is needed. If he or she doesn’t speak English, then a translator is provided. And nowadays, even the Western students themselves are able to explain and teach. Before, we needed geshes. Now that the Masters Program and Basic Program are running, lay students teach philosophy, even in centers where there are geshes. FPMT developed this. But to have all that, you need facilities—you need many things. So, you provide those things. And you need all that to help sentient beings, to help yourself and to help others.

Between the body and mind, everyone at the Dharma center is there to help the minds of sentient beings. By running the center with the mind of Dharma—correctly following the virtuous friend, renunciation, bodhichitta, and emptiness (without even talking about tantra)—whatever you are doing there, whatever the center does becomes virtue. Everything becomes the cause of achieving nirvana and nothing becomes the cause of achieving samsara. Everything becomes the cause of enlightenment. Everything becomes the cause of enlightenment if the main effort of everyone working in the center is put into cultivating a bodhichitta motivation. This is the best way to benefit sentient beings.

To bring about world peace, the basic thing needed is for people to learn about and develop compassion. Basic Dharma is compassion. If you create negative karma, if you harm other sentient beings, the result is that you will be harmed for hundreds, thousands, and millions of lifetimes. If you benefit others, then you will have success in your life for hundreds, thousands, millions, and billions of lifetimes—it goes on and on. All happiness comes.

At the Dharma center, you teach basic Buddhism: compassion and wisdom. Therefore, students come to know about karma. They abandon negative karma, which causes suffering, and create good karma, which brings happiness. Dharma centers bring so much peace and compassion to the world. They teach compassion and wisdom. They teach what is right and what is wrong. From that which is right, comes all happiness up to enlightenment. From that which is wrong, comes all the sufferings. That is why students need to learn Dharma. And not only lamrim, but philosophy too.

At Light of the Path, Ven. Chantal Carrerot, Paula Chichester, and Alexis Benelhadj request Rinpoche to give a Vajrayogini retreat at Institut Vajra Yogini in France, September 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

So, the centers are sooooo important. The centers are where sentient beings are allowed to learn Dharma and to meditate. Centers are where there are facilities, teachers, translators. They are so, so, so important for sentient beings. You cannot imagine how important they are, how needed they are. In the centers, everything that is done is for sentient beings. Can you imagine? It’s so important, so important, so important.

By remembering that you are involved in this, you should always be happy. As I often say, I thought people who had won at soccer were angry—because they weren’t smiling; their veins pop out they raise up their arms! Later, I realized it meant that they were unbelievably happy. But that’s nothing. That happiness is nothing because it doesn’t protect them from the lower realms.

For us, we have to be joyous nonstop like a soccer player who has won a match. We have to express our joy—with our arms raised—day and night, all the time, every second. People might think you are crazy because you aren’t playing soccer! If you are defeating other people in a match, it’s OK for you to raise your arms, but because you aren’t defeating other people in a match, they think you are crazy and should go to an institution. In reality, you are making so much merit, so much happiness in every second—it’s unbelievable, unbelievable. You are following the guru’s advice and fulfilling the guru’s holy wishes, which collects the highest merit. Whatever you are doing while working for the center collects the highest merit and is the greatest purification of negative karma collected since beginning rebirths. You have to recognize that. 

Excerpted from Light of the Path 2017, Blue Ridge Mountains, North Carolina, United States, September 4, 2017. Edited by Mandala for FPMT.org.

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.

Find recordings of Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching around the world, including at the Light of the Path retreat at https://fpmt.org/RinpocheNow/.

Join Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s 100 Million Mani Retreat at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Italy: October 4-November 5, 2017. Find out more at:
https://www.iltk.org/en/lama-zopa-rinpoche-2017/

Lama Zopa Rinpoche blessing a very sick patient of Shakyamuni Health Clinic; Rinpoche did short Medicine Buddha practice for her and all the patients there, Bodhgaya, India, April 2017. Photo by Ven. Holly Ansett.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche sent the following advice to a person who fell down and was injured, and is still very sick as well as worried because he hasn’t gotten better.

Think that I am the most fortunate one, that I have this sickness, I am the most fortunate one. Why? Because by having this sickness now I can practice pure Dharma. I have been given the opportunity to practice pure Dharma. So I can experience all sentient beings’ pain, disease, spirit harm, negative karma, and obscurations, and they can all achieve the dharmakaya.

Also you can meditate that you receive all sentient beings’ pain, disease, negative karma, and obscurations. Think that you have received these in your heart in the form of darkness, like smoke, like black fog, and they destroy the self-cherishing thought, where all the sufferings come from. They are brought into the heart and received there, like throwing an atomic bomb on the enemy, so self-cherishing thoughts are totally smashed. So here you give this to the self-cherishing thought that has caused you beginningless oceans of samsara in the six realms up to the present, as well as the present and endless future oceans of suffering—not only your suffering but has also given suffering to numberless sentient beings from beginningless lives up to now—and as long as you don’t generate bodhichitta, it will bring endless suffering to numberless sentient beings again. So destroy the one enemy, this self-cherishing thought, so it is totally destroyed. And think that all sentient beings receive dharmakaya.

You can do tonglen, if you can, taking on others’ suffering and with compassion giving your body, possessions, and merits to other sentient beings, with loving kindness, so they all receive enlightenment, achieve rupakaya.

[If you can listen to the teachings that Rinpoche recently gave at the Light of the Path retreat in North Carolina, it is all online. If you can watch that or listen to that, it would be very good].

Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Shakyamuni Health Clinic, Bodhgaya, India, April 2017. Photo by Ven. Holly Ansett.

Then much of your day you can recite this, like a mantra but instead of a mantra. If you can, do at least a few malas a day of this:

“By my having to experience this sickness, may all sentient beings be free immediately from all the diseases, spirit harm, negative karma, and defilements.”

So pray like this and recite this each day and do a few malas. This prayer is from the great yogi Choje Götsangpa.

So you can see this sickness is helping you. That is why I said how fortunate you are. You can collect more than skies of merit and purify negative karma and defilements collected from beginningless rebirth. This brings you to enlightenment quickly. This is why I said in the beginning how fortunate you are to think in this way.

It is very, very, very good, in reality it is like this. This is a gain, not a loss for you, the highest gain, so please do this.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Transcribed by Ven. Holly Ansett, Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington, USA, November 2016. Lightly edited by Mandala.

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.

Find recordings of Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching around the world, including at the Light of the Path retreat at https://fpmt.org/RinpocheNow/.

Join Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s 100 Million Mani Retreat at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Italy: October 4-November 5, 2017. Find out more at:
https://www.iltk.org/en/lama-zopa-rinpoche-2017/

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching in Bangalore, India, December 2016.

Rinpoche gave this advice to one student and said it is applicable to anyone.

If you are my student, then you must do the morning motivation, The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment). Do not just read the words, but relate them to your life. You must recite these words and if after reciting the words your mind doesn’t change, then you are not doing it [correctly].

In addition, I want you to recite these two verses as a dedication and to memorize them:

Whenever someone has an angry or devotional thought arise
Just by looking at me,
May that attitude alone become a cause that always
Accomplishes all the temporary and ultimate purposes of that being.

Whenever others criticize me with their speech,
Harm me with their bodies,
Or likewise insult me behind my back,
May all of them be fortunate to achieve great enlightenment.

You must recite these two verses and if these don’t change your mind, then you are not thinking about the meaning. Therefore, use these two verses often as your dedication. This is most important to recite; it’s good to recite and to remember by heart.

You need to remember that you yourself have harmed numberless sentient beings from beginningless rebirths numberless times. You have given every kind of harm numberless times to the numberless sentient beings. Now what you experience—the way others harm you, the way they treat you, anything unpleasant—is the result of your negative karma. So you have to recognize the shortcomings of your self-cherishing thought.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, giving a short talk and offering blessings to people in Bhutan. June 2016. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

As the Kadampa geshe says:

Put all the blame to one. Toward others, meditate on their kindness.

Put all the blame to one—this is the self-cherishing thought. Even if someone sees you and dislikes you, thinks you are bad, or if anyone criticizes you or kicks you out of a center and so on, think it is the result of past karma, because you harmed others, numberless sentient beings, numberless times from beginningless rebirth.

Anything unpleasant you receive back is the result of your bad karma, your self-cherishing thought. This is what is to be abandoned in order to actualize bodhichitta.

In my morning motivation, it mentions, May I be used by sentient beings. This means you dedicate yourself to be the servant of sentient beings, to be totally used by sentient beings. This is what makes you achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible. Otherwise if you have too much ego, then you go to hell. If that is what you want, if you want that, then it is a totally different situation; if you would like to go to hell. But if you don’t like to go to hell, then you need to change the mind, to renounce the ego.

As the Kadampa geshe mentions, the self-cherishing thought is something to be thrown away—a long distance—immediately. But others are to be taken into your heart and cherished immediately.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Transcribed by Ven. Holly Ansett, Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington, USA, November 6, 2016. Edited by Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive under the title “Renounce the Ego“:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/renounce-ego.

Get copies of the The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment) from the Foundation Store.

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. Learn more about Lama Zopa Rinpoche and his vision for a better world. Sign up to receive news and updates.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche outside his room at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, December 2016. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

In October 2016, a student wrote to Lama Zopa Rinpoche asking how to deal with a situation in which an individual behaved in ways that were angry and unkind. Rinpoche typed out the following reply himself from Buddha Amitabha Pure Land in Washington State, US:

Usually when you are being sincerely kind towards a person, that person learns from you. Then they become kind to you. Sometimes this takes time.

Patience is unbelievable when you practice it. It brings success and happiness in this life and future lives, for hundreds of thousands of lifetimes. Through the development of patience, you can achieve enlightenment and free yourself from the oceans of suffering of samsara. Also you can enlighten the other person. With bodhichitta, you can utilize the harm to achieve enlightenment and the happiness of every sentient being of the six realms. You can benefit the other person in that way.

In Sydney, Australia, I heard about a family that bought a new car. The neighbor did not like the family, and he made marks on the car once or twice. Then the mother of the family asked a Dharma student what to do about this. The student explained to the mother what he thought Lama Zopa would do to the neighbors who were marking the car. He thought Lama Zopa would buy them a present, whatever they liked. So the mother checked what the neighbor liked, and it seemed that he would like a ball very much. So she bought a few balls. At the beginning he did not accept. But then he accepted the balls, and he was very happy. And he erased the marks he had made on the car.

Your friend who is angry towards you can be the most kind person in your life if you use the opportunity to practice patience or compassion towards her. Then you will be able to achieve enlightenment quickly. And after that, you will be able to liberate mother sentient beings from the oceans of suffering of samsara and bring them to full enlightenment. If someone is just nice to you, flattering you, giving you food and so forth, that just brings attachment, and that becomes cause of samsara and the lower realms.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Khandro-la, Bodh Gaya, India, January 2017. Photo by Bill Kane.

Lightly edited by Ven. Holly Ansett and Mandala.

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 visiting Khyongla Rato Rinpoche on Chokhor Duchen to respectfully make offerings to a beloved guru, New York, USA, August 2016. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

A student wrote to Lama Zopa Rinpoche saying that he felt no one liked him. Rinpoche responded as follows.

When you had very negative thoughts before, thinking “nobody loves me, no one cares for me etc.,” you had so much unhappiness made by your own mind. You had that very unhappy mind for a long time. You have been thinking that the numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas do not love you; they don’t care for you, you are completely left out, and they let you suffer.

This way of thinking shows that you do not have renunciation of attachment, and also not an understanding of bodhichitta or emptiness.

Actually they cherish you one hundred thousand times more than the amount you love yourself. If they did not love you and cherish you, then you would not be a human being in this life. And even if you were, you would not have created all the virtues that you have, so much benefit for sentient beings would not have happened, and all this Dharma education you would not have. All of this, so much, so much, so much—you would not have.

It is important to understand the meditators, monks, nuns, and also lay people who are living in renunciation. Renunciation means to renounce attachment to this life, to future lives, to samsara. So they do not feel “nobody loves me.” They are so satisfied; they have inner peace and happiness. The stronger the renunciation, the more peace and happiness inside.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche greets Lama Monlam in Sarnath, India, January 2017. Photo by Paolo Regis.

Many people do not know this. They think that to be brought presents, flowers, and cakes makes them sooooooo happy.

But to generate the two bodhichittas, loving kindness, and compassion is not attachment. Like a mother, in just the way she cherishes her child, so the meditator cherishes numberless hell beings, preta beings, animals, human beings, suras, asuras and intermediate state beings, and all sentient beings—and then generates the precious thought to achieve full enlightenment for all these mother sentient beings.

From this there are skies of happiness and peace.

This is very important news. This can be very helpful for many other people, be they students or just ordinary people. The sadness, feeling alone, that no one loves you, this comes from attachment to this life. That’s why they need renunciation. This is the antidote that brings inner peace and happiness. It means the mind becoming pure Dharma.

The great ascetic Tsangpa Gyare [the founder of the Drukpa lineage] who is the savior of transmigratory beings, said, “Do not lose the auspicious connection with the valid perfect one. Even if you lose auspicious connections with everyone else, so be it. But if you lose the connection with the valid perfect one, then even if all transmigratory beings become your relatives—what is the use of that?

Khadro-la (Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drönme) at Maitripa College, Portland, OR, US, June 2012. Photo by Marc Sakamoto.

Transcribed by Ven. Holly Ansett, Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington, USA, November 2016. Lightly edited by Mandala.

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.