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Lama Zopa Rinpoche News
Kopan Monastery School performers in deer costumes, Kathmandu, Nepal, December 2018. Photo by Kopan Monastery School.
Geshe Sherab, headmaster at Kopan Monastery School in Kathmandu, Nepal, shares how the students at this FPMT monastery celebrated Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s birthday.
We’ve been celebrating Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s birthday quite extensively since 2016. The last two years were perfect as we celebrated in the presence of Rinpoche himself. This year we celebrated without Rinpoche because of Rinpoche’s later arrival here in Nepal.
Audience enjoying the birthday festivities at Kopan Monastery, Kathmandu, Nepal, December 2018. Photo by Kopan Monastery School.
Students spent two months preparing a play for the event. The event went well. We had a great lunch then we all gathered in front of the Kopan Monastery gompa. We had a huge cake as you see in the picture.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s birthday cake at Kopan Monastery, Kathmandu, Nepal, December 2018. Photo by Kopan Monastery School.
The program began with an offering of body, speech, and mind to Rinpoche by Kopan’s abbot Khen Rinpoche Geshe Thubten Chonyi.
Khen Rinpoche Geshe Thubten Chonyi making an offering of body, speech, and mind to Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s throne at Kopan Monastery, Kathmandu, Nepal, December 2018. Photo by Kopan Monastery School.
This was followed by a play called The Deer Park. I created the play’s concept, and it was written by our volunteer teacher Alex Duncan. The costumes were by Ven. Tenzin Sherab.
Kopan Monastery School performers in costume at Kopan Monastery, Kathmandu, Nepal, December 2018. Photo by Kopan Monastery School.
The students performed the play as more then four hundred people were watching and enjoying the cake.
Kopan Monastery School performers performing the play at Kopan Monastery, Kathmandu, Nepal, December 2018. Photo by Kopan Monastery School.
Young monks who performed in the English-language play were so excited even after the program finished. I was so happy that all the young artists said all of their lines very well.
For more information about Kopan Monastery and Khachoe Ghakyil Nunnery:
http://kopanmonastery.com/
http://www.kopannunnery.org/
Find complete videos of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent teachings at Kopan Monastery:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/
FPMT.org and Mandala Publications brings you news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and of activities, teachings, and events from over 160 FPMT centers, projects, and services around the globe. If you like what you read, consider becoming a Friend of FPMT, which supports our work.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche arriving at Kopan Monastery, where he will teach during the annual Kopan meditation course, Nepal, December 2018. Photo courtesy of Kopan Monastery Facebook page.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche was greeted by hundreds of nuns, monks, and lay students at Khachoe Ghakyil Nunnery and Kopan Monastery upon his return to Nepal.
Rinpoche first went to the nunnery, where hundreds of nuns were waiting to greet him. Rinpoche stopped and visited the nunnery gompa before going up Kopan hill.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche arriving at Khachoe Ghakyil Nunnery, Nepal, December 2018. Photo by Bill Kane.
At Kopan Monastery, the monks and lay students attending the 51st month-long Kopan lamrim meditation course lined up to greet Rinpoche, offering khatas and welcoming him back.
Monks and lay students at Kopan Monastery awaiting Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s arrival, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, December 2018. Photo courtesy of Kopan Monastery Facebook page.
Rinpoche started giving teachings at the Kopan course, which are being streamed live online.
For links to watch the teaching, visit the “Lama Zopa Rinpoche LIVE” page:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/
Rinpoche often teaches at the 3:30 p.m. session (UTC+5:45), although times are subject to change. Rinpoche will be teaching at the Kopan course until it concludes on December 17 with the long life puja offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche on behalf of the FPMT organization.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, December 2018. Photo by Bill Kane.
Kopan monks during Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s arrival, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, December 2018. Photo courtesy of Kopan Monastery Facebook page.
Monks and Kopan course students welcoming Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, December 2018. Photo courtesy of Kopan Monastery Facebook page.
Find complete videos of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent teachings:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/
For more information about Kopan Monastery and Khachoe Ghakyil Nunnery:
http://kopanmonastery.com/
http://www.kopannunnery.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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Jamyang Buddhist Centre, London, UK, 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche sent a special video message to Jamyang Buddhist Centre in London, describing the importance and benefit of having a Dharma center.
Rinpoche’s message was in honor of Jamyang’s fortieth anniversary, which was marked with two days of events in October.
The celebration included an evening remembering Lama Yeshe, the launch of the Cafe at Jamyang’s cookbook, a presentation on the history of Jamyang, cake, a group photo, and a look toward the center’s future.
In the video, Rinpoche thanks all the people who have helped Jamyang exist over the years.
Rinpoche also explains how FPMT centers can bring peace to the world by teaching people about compassion and how to develop a good heart.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Message Celebrating Jamyang Buddhist Centre’s 40 Anniversary:
https://youtu.be/8NCHapZcHgQ
Learn more about Jamyang Buddhist Center:
https://www.jamyang.co.uk/
Find complete videos of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent teachings:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/
Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.
Lama Yeshe, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and Zong Rinpoche at Manjushri Institute, UK, 1978. Photo courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive recently published The Path to Ultimate Happiness, an ebook of teachings given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche during the 42nd Kopan lamrim course. Here’s a short excerpt where Rinpoche talks about his precious teacher Lama Yeshe, who founded FPMT with Rinpoche:
Lama Yeshe was kinder than all the three times’ buddhas. For the tantric meditators, when you bring the wind into the central channel, the in-breath and out-breath are equalized, without one being stronger than the other. When the wind abides in the central channel the belly does not move; it stays calm. There’s no breathing through the nostrils during the absorption when the gross mind stops and only the most subtle mind is actualized.
That meditation on emptiness is like an atomic bomb, the quickest way to cease the defilements and achieve enlightenment. That becomes the direct cause of the dharmakaya. My guess is that when the mind becomes extremely subtle, when the gross mind stops, at that time the heart stops beating, there is no rising or falling of the belly and no breathing through the nose. I’m not sure; that’s just my guess.
Externally, what Lama Yeshe manifested was a heart problem. That’s what people saw; that’s what the doctors diagnosed it as. Lama actually used this heart problem that outside people saw for his meditation session. Lama’s meditation sessions were often Lama lying down and people took that to be him resting or sleeping; that was the view of other people. Actually, for Lama Yeshe that was a meditation session. It was a very high tantric meditation, part of the completion stage practice, the practice of clear light and the illusory body, the direct cause of the dharmakaya and the rupakaya. He did this at night and always after lunch. To other people he was resting or sleeping, but it was actually a meditation session.
Lama didn’t show much sitting in a formal meditation posture with eyes closed and so forth. He did sometimes, later, but it wasn’t normal for him. He was a very high yogi, a very accomplished master, so his way of doing this was kind of secret. That is what was happening internally.
Outside, whoever he was with, he fitted in with them. If he was with children, he fitted in with them; when he was with old people he fitted in with them. Whoever came he fitted in with them, acting in a way that was best for them, in order to make everybody happy. Therefore, everybody saw Lama differently. Some people even saw him as a big businessman. But in reality he was a great meditator who had realizations of emptiness and bodhichitta. He realized emptiness while still in Tibet. He said he realized emptiness while they were debating Madhyamaka philosophy many years ago in Tibet. And I remember something happened while we were in Delhi and Lama said he could never get angry at even one sentient being, he could never renounce even one sentient being. That shows he had the realization of bodhichitta a long time ago.
I pushed Lama to come to Kopan to help with the course. Usually I talked about the eight worldly dharmas and the negative attitude and the lower realms, and I’d spend about two weeks or so on that, then everybody got very depressed, by hearing all the negatives. Then Lama Yeshe came and made them laugh, releasing them from that sadness and depression. This is how we did it.
Excerpted from The Path to Ultimate Happiness, teachings given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche during the 42nd Kopan lamrim course in 2009 at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, lightly edited by Gordon McDougall and Sandra Smith.
In the new ebook The Path to Ultimate Happiness, Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains the lamrim, the stages of the path to enlightenment, teaches extensively on emptiness and the good heart, and gives commentaries on sur practice, the Offering Cloud Mantra, and other prayers and practices.
You can order The Path to Ultimate Happiness from the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive or the FPMT Foundation Store:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/shop/path-ultimate-happiness-ebook
https://shop.fpmt.org/-The-Path-to-Ultimate-Happiness-eBook-PDF-_p_3134.html
Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation, and community service.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching in Munich, Germany, November 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive recently published The Path to Ultimate Happiness, an ebook of teachings given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche during the 42nd Kopan lamrim course. In this book, Rinpoche discusses our potential to bring benefit and happiness, including full enlightenment, to all sentient beings. Here’s a short excerpt:
This life is very short. We can’t really tell how many years we have left or how many months, how many weeks, how many days, how many hours, minutes, or seconds. There are a certain number of seconds, a certain number of breaths from right at this minute up to the time of our death, and those breaths are constantly running out; they are going very fast. There are a certain number of seconds from right now until death, and they are finishing very fast. Whatever is left over is constantly finishing very fast as we go toward death.
We can’t really tell who will die next in this world. A child who has just come out of womb—or even in the womb—can die without the opportunity to grow up. So many sentient beings die in their childhood, so many when they become middle-aged, and of course there is no question of when they become old.
We really can’t tell. Within another ten or twenty years, and certainly within another fifty years, many of us here will be gone. Can we be certain that we will still be OK for another year? It’s difficult to say, even regarding our own wellbeing.
Excerpted from The Path to Ultimate Happiness, teachings given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche during the 42nd Kopan lamrim course in 2009 at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, lightly edited by Gordon McDougall and Sandra Smith.
In the new ebook The Path to Ultimate Happiness, Rinpoche explains the lamrim, the stages of the path to enlightenment, teaches extensively on emptiness and the good heart, and gives commentaries on sur practice, the Offering Cloud Mantra, and other prayers and practices.
You can order The Path to Ultimate Happiness from the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive or the FPMT Foundation Store:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/shop/path-ultimate-happiness-ebook
https://shop.fpmt.org/-The-Path-to-Ultimate-Happiness-eBook-PDF-_p_3134.html
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche teach LIVE during his visit to Switzerland, November 13, 16-18! For links to live video streams:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/
Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation, and community service.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche being interview by Wisdom Publication’s Daniel Aitken for a Wisdom Podcast, Kurukulla Center, Massachusetts, US, August 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Wisdom Publications recently featured Lama Zopa Rinpoche in its Wisdom Podcast. Daniel Aitken, director of Wisdom Publications, spoke with Rinpoche for over an hour, during Rinpoche’s visit to Kurukulla Center in Boston, US, in August 2018.
In the far-ranging interview, Rinpoche speaks on many topics, including stories about his early days as a young monk, how he became a Gelugpa, and how he ended up at Buxa in West Bengal, India, where he met Lama Yeshe. Rinpoche also offers a succinct teaching on emptiness and everyday practice advice.
“Now there is much more understanding of Buddhism, what Buddhism is, really,” Rinpoche said when asked about how Dharma practice has developed in the West over the past fifty years.
“That has happened and so much is happening, but overall the most important, the most important, you see, the essence of Buddhadharma is compassion. Compassion that not only wishes sentient beings, who are obscured and suffering, to be free from suffering, not only that, but you want to free, you want to help the sentient beings to be free from sufferings and the cause of sufferings.
“Overall, I think, as regards the FPMT students, overall as the years went through, I checked, so it looks like more compassion has developed among the people. More compassion, more understanding and more compassion, has developed. This is what I see.”
This Wisdom Podcast of Lama Zopa Rinpoche is available as audio or video, both with a transcript.
Watch the Wisdom Podcast interview on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/ZFPvDq5kyfQ
There are dozens of Wisdom Podcasts available to listen to. Recent guests include Geshe Thubten Jinpa, Geshe Tashi Tsering, and His Holiness the Sakya Trichen Ngawang Kunga, among many other accomplished teachers, scholars, and practitioners of Buddhism.
Find the Wisdom Podcast of Lama Zopa Rinpoche online:
https://learn.wisdompubs.org/podcast/lama-zopa/
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/
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.
Khen Rinpoche Geshe Thubten Chonyi, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and Tan Hup Cheng in front of Amitabha Buddhist Center’s new entrance painted by Peter Griffin, Singapore, September 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche arrived in Singapore on September 10, 2018, where he was greeted by a large group of students at the airport. Rinpoche spent the following three weeks leading activities at FPMT center Amitabha Buddhist Centre. The program ended on September 29 with a long life puja for Rinpoche. Shila Gephel, a long-time student of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, shares the story.
Kelvin Lee, Doris Lim , Toh Su Fen, Tan Wee Meng, Sandra Chen, and Ong Cheng Cheng at the Amitabha Buddhist Centre registration table, Singapore, September 2018. Photo by Tan Seow Kheng.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s presence at Amitabha Buddhist Centre galvanized both old and new students, many who had come from different parts of the world, including Mongolia, Spain, Italy, Britain, Taiwan, and neighboring Malaysia.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Tan Hup Cheng watching Khen Rinpoche Geshe Thubten Chonyi offer the golden crown to the Chenrezig statue at Amitabha Buddhist Centre, Singapore, September 2018. Photo by Tan Seow Kheng.
The program started on September 13 with Rinpoche offering the newly finished golden crown to the Chenrezig statue in the main gompa and taking time to explain about the incredible benefits of offering to holy objects. “It is exactly the same as having made offerings to the actual Buddha or Chenrezig, and that means also exactly the same as offering to His Holiness the Dalai Lama.”
Lama Zopa Rinpoche making offerings to Chenrezig during the golden crown offering ceremony at Amitabha Buddhist Centre, Singapore, September 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Watch the short video, A Thousand Hands – The Wish Fulfilled, by Ven. Tenzin Tsultrim:
https://youtu.be/98Z0Px5aL1o
Rinpoche continued in the days after to give mind-training teachings, an Amitabha Obtaining the Pure Land initiation, and extensive Lama Chopa commentary. Rinpoche said that so many holy beings actualized the Lama Chopa and that this teaching has not degenerated; it is still warm with blessing.
Ven. Tenzin Tsultrim, Ven. Gyalten Rabten, and Ven. Tenzin Drachom making the offering to Lama Zopa Rinpoche during Lama Chopa at Amitabha Buddhist Centre, Singapore, September 2018. Photo by Tan Seow Kheng.
Rinpoche also reminded us that “if one doesn’t get to practice Dharma, learn Dharma, actualize the true path, wisdom directly realizing emptiness, then we will cycle again endlessly in samsara, suffering. The most important answer is to want to benefit others, that is the real answer.”
Wong Lai Kuen and Jangchup, named by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, during the tsog puja at Amitabha Buddhist Centre, Singapore, September 2018. Photo by Tan Seow Kheng.
To the people attending the South East Asian Regional Meeting, Rinpoche spoke about the Masters Program and Basic Program that are being taught in the centers and the importance of doing retreat after study. “Even if one is able to actualize one lamrim realization, it is so worthwhile.”
Rinpoche then said how his wish now is for FPMT students to develop lamrim experiences more and more, and that the most important thing for FPMT’s success is to have good samaya with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lama Yeshe, and Rinpoche.
A long life puja was offered to Rinpoche on the last day of the program with Rinpoche reminding us again about “how important it is to practice the bodhisattva attitude so all your actions are dedicated for sentient beings.”
In these three blessed weeks, the center was filled to capacity as humans and pets alike imbibed the unending wisdom of the holy guru and rejoiced at the collection of dreamlike merits.
The Amitabha Buddhist Centre choir singing Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s long life prayer to Rinpoche, Singapore, September 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Watch a short video created by Alaric, Heather, and Qiping that captures the highlights of Rinpoche’s visit:
https://youtu.be/JP7-v5PxcKk
To learn more about Amitabha Buddhist Centre, visit their website:
http://www.fpmtabc.org/
View the photo album of Rinpoche’s visit to Singapore:
https://fpmt.org/teachers/zopa/gallery/singapore-september-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, including from Singapore:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/
FPMT.org and Mandala Publications brings you news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and of activities, teachings, and events from over 160 FPMT centers, projects, and services around the globe. If you like what you read, consider becoming a Friend of FPMT, which supports our work.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Australia, May 2018. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive has just published The Path to Ultimate Happiness, an ebook of teachings given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche during the 42nd Kopan lamrim course. In this book, Rinpoche discusses our potential to bring benefit and happiness, including full enlightenment, to all sentient beings. Here’s a short excerpt:
By realizing the most subtle level of emptiness we are able to cut the very root of samsara, ignorance. There are many types of ignorance, but this is particularly the ignorance holding the I, the self, as something real in the sense of existing from its own side, not merely labeled by mind. The I that exists from its own side is something that is not there at all; it totally doesn’t exist. But this ignorance holds onto such a false I, not the I that does exist.
There is an I that exists, but it is empty. While it exists it’s empty, unifying emptiness and dependent arising, unifying ultimate truth and conventional truth, the truth for the ultimate wisdom and the truth for the all-obscuring mind. There are these two truths, ultimate truth and conventional truth, and emptiness and dependent arising unifies the two. That is how the I exists.
That is the view of the Prasangika school, the wisdom realizing emptiness that is explained by that school, by recognizing the subtle object to be refuted, the very subtle hallucination. This does not happen by realizing the emptiness explained by the previous schools, only by the Prasangika’s explanation. There is only one emptiness and only by realizing that can we cut the root of samsara, ignorance.
Excerpted from The Path to Ultimate Happiness, teachings given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche during the 42nd Kopan lamrim course in 2009 at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, lightly edited by Gordon McDougall and Sandra Smith.
You can order The Path to Ultimate Happiness from the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive or the FPMT Foundation Store:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/shop/path-ultimate-happiness-ebook
https://shop.fpmt.org/-The-Path-to-Ultimate-Happiness-eBook-PDF-_p_3134.html
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/
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 all the beings in a lake in Washington State, US, June 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive has just published The Path to Ultimate Happiness, a new ebook of teachings given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche during the 42nd Kopan lamrim course.
In this book, Rinpoche discusses our potential to bring benefit and happiness, including full enlightenment, to all sentient beings. Rinpoche explains the lamrim, the stages of the path to enlightenment, teaches extensively on emptiness and the good heart, and gives commentaries on sur practice, the Offering Cloud Mantra, and other prayers and practices.
The Path to Ultimate Happiness conveys the spontaneous and intimate quality of Rinpoche’s teaching style and includes many anecdotes from his own experiences. Here’s a short excerpt:
The teachings about karma are very, very important. If you remember this in your daily life you will become very careful, not only avoiding negativities, not harming others, but also being kind, generous and gentle to them. You are able to practice this because you see its importance. You are able to abandon the negative karmas that cause you to receive harm from sentient beings for hundreds or thousands of lifetimes.
Conversely, when you do one act of kindness for a sentient being, you will receive help from that sentient being for hundreds and thousands of lifetimes. From your one act of kindness you receive the benefit from that sentient being for hundreds, thousands of lifetimes. Therefore, if you want to be happy, if you don’t want to receive harm from others, you need to practice the good heart, you need to be kind to others, not only to your friends but even to your enemies and strangers. Practicing kindness, you receive the result—happiness, enjoyment—from that sentient being for many hundreds, thousands of lifetimes.
The conclusion is that every day of your life, day and night, practice kindness to others, thus causing others to have happiness. That is essential; it’s the cause of your own happiness, not only in this life but in thousands of future lifetimes.
If you want your wishes to succeed all the time, you should make others’ wishes succeed. Causing others’ wishes to succeed is the cause of success of your wishes every day of your life. As much as you are able to do that, the result will be that in this life and all the future lives, all the time your wishes will succeed. Without any effort, without any worry or fear, whatever wish you have will just happen, exactly like that, including achieving enlightenment. Practicing kindness, as much as you can, you should fulfill the wishes of others. From one act of kindness your wishes are fulfilled for hundreds of thousands of lifetimes.
As His Holiness the Dalai Lama always says, if you want to live your life with a selfish attitude it’s better to live it by being intelligently selfish. By helping others, being kind to others, the result is that you will get happiness. From one act of fulfilling one wish of a sentient being, your wishes will succeed for hundreds of lifetimes, thousands of lifetimes. This is being intelligently selfish, thinking of how to get all your wishes fulfilled. This is correct but the main reason for helping others is still for your own happiness.
For bodhisattvas there is never a thought for their own happiness. It doesn’t arise even for a second. There is always the thought of cherishing others, of seeking happiness for the other sentient beings: the numberless hell beings, the numberless hungry ghosts, the numberless animals, the numberless human beings and the numberless gods and demigods. Only practicing kindness, fulfilling others’ wishes for happiness, thinking of others’ happiness, the bodhisattvas’ attitude is very pure. This is what we should all try to practice in our daily life.
Excerpted from The Path to Ultimate Happiness, teachings given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche during the 42nd Kopan lamrim course in 2009 at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, lightly edited by Gordon McDougall and Sandra Smith.
To order the new ebook The Path to Ultimate Happiness, visit:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/shop/path-ultimate-happiness-ebook
An ebook series that presents teachings from the 24th Kopan course in 1991 is also available from Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. For more:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/kopan-course-no-24-1991-ebook-series
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 Lama Chopa at Kopan Monastery on Lama Tsongkhapa Day, Nepal, December 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Every year the month-long lamrim meditation course at Kopan Monastery in Nepal draws more than two hundred students from around the world. And every year the November Course, as it’s called, fills up quickly. Many students starting planning to attend the transformative program months, if not years, in advance.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche first taught the month-long lamrim course in 1971. Rinpoche continues to offer teachings at the course almost every year. Last year Rinpoche spoke to students about the significance of attending the course and how it helps one deal with individual and societal problems. The following is a short excerpt from that teaching:
Coming to Kopan Monastery—attending one of the meditation courses—is to pacify the negative mind that brings all the problems, global problems. Coming here is to pacify that. You understand the point? It is most important.
So you are coming here to learn meditation. What you are learning, that is the most important thing in the world, the most important thing in your life.
That helps not only this life, it helps not only the next life, it helps hundreds and thousands, millions, it goes on, the benefit goes on and on. It goes on to enlightenment.
Ultimately it goes on to enlightenment. Your coming here to do meditation—listening and meditating—all this goes up to enlightenment for numberless sentient beings.
You achieve enlightenment for numberless sentient beings—for every ant you see in the road, in the gompa, every bird, every dog and cat, people, every sentient being—to benefit everyone, to free them from the oceans of suffering of samsara and bring them to buddhahood, peerless happiness, buddhahood.
So your coming here, learning lamrim meditation, meditating to actualize, is so the mind, the child mind, is transformed into a mind that cherishes others, like the Buddha did. …
Watch the teaching by Lama Zopa Rinpoche from which this excerpt is taken:
https://youtu.be/r2fmyis25pw
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 November Course and other opportunities to learn and meditate 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.
Association of Himalayan Buddhists of South Australia (AHIMBSA) and Lyndy Abram at Buddha House, South Australia, May 2018. Photo courtesy of Buddha House.
Lyndy Abram, center director of Buddha House, an FPMT center located in a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia, shares about the center’s friendship with the Himalayan Buddhist community of South Australia.
Last September we received a request from the Association of Himalayan Buddhists of South Australia (AHIMBSA) for a blessing from our then-resident teacher, Geshe Konchog Kyab. About forty people of all ages came to Buddha House for the visit. They were very excited to meet with a lama. I decided to follow up with the AHIMBSA representatives to see what we could do to help them.
It turned out there are 3,500 Himalayan refugees living in the northern suburbs of Adelaide. They have been coming here since 2008, and it is a growing community. They told us that they had lived most of their lives in refugee camps in Nepal and had previously been in Bhutan. They told stories of torture and having been in solitary confinement, chained, for years. Some of the people who directly experienced this were at the meeting. They told us they had not had access to any Buddhist teachings due to the circumstances of being a refugee.
The Board of Buddha House agreed we should partner with their community, offering teachings for the adults and the children, and whenever a visiting teacher comes to involve them in the visit.
Our friendship with them is growing. A large number of AHIMBSA members came to Buddha House in May 2018 for the opening of our new location, where they met Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Some of the children sang a national song as part of the ceremony.
Bahadur Gurung, AHIMBSA chairman, and Jogen, translator, having afternoon tea with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, South Australia, May 2018. Photo courtesy of Buddha House.
Rinpoche had afternoon tea with Bahadur Gurung, AHIMBSA’s chairman, and Jogen, translator, and they shared their stories with him. Rinpoche said to them it is much better for you to practice Dharma here than it was in Nepal, because in the refugee camps you did not have access to Dharma teachings.
Buddha House wants to ensure we help AHIMBSA as much as possible. We are so fortunate to have the Dharma, as well as the freedom to practice, attend teachings, and spend time with the Dharma community. Meeting them and hearing their stories has helped us understand our good fortune.
AHIMBSA youth and Buddha House Dharma Kids Club greet Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Buddha House, South Australia, May 2018. Photo courtesy of Buddha House.
They would particularly like help with the children, which we are able to do through providing a Dharma club. Ven. Dondrub and myself go to a hall AHIMBSA hires monthly. I run a Dharma club for kids class then Ven. Dondrub gives a Dharma talk to the adults. Since many community members do not speak English, they provide a Nepali translator for him.
AHIMBSA really wants help with their young adults. I asked Geshe Tenzin Zopa, who has met with them twice now for teachings and blessings, what they might do. He suggested doing activities teenagers want to do—outings, camps—and then introduce Dharma topics in a setting they feel comfortable in.
AHIMBSA youth performance at AHIMBSA’s second anniversary celebration, Cambodian Buddhist Hall of Salisbury, South Australia, July 2018. Photo courtesy of Buddha House.
In July 2018 AHIMBSA celebrated its second anniversary by throwing a celebration held at the Cambodian Buddhist Hall of Salisbury. They invited Buddha House representatives to a joyous day of entertainment, and to honor the lives of their elders. Three women in their nineties were given certificates of honor and were covered in blessing scarves and shawls by the local members of parliament.
They honored people from organizations who help their community which included myself, representing Buddha House. The children were given blessing strings and mantra cards which were a gift from Rinpoche.
Lyndy Abram with AHIMBSA youth at AHIMBSA’s second anniversary celebration, Cambodian Buddhist Hall of Salisbury, South Australia, July 2018. Photo by Janne Graham.
The young people performed cultural, Bollywood, and modern-style dances. There were also music performances, and a meal and chai were given to the more than 1,000 people in attendance. It was a wonderful day.
We are so fortunate to have met with this vibrant, happy community we can now call our friends.
For more information about Buddha House visit their website:
http://buddhahouse.org
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Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Sangha arranging flower offerings for the Amitabha Buddha statue, Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington, US, July 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Before traveling to India at the end of August and then Singapore in September, Lama Zopa Rinpoche spent nearly three months in the United States. Rinpoche stayed for two months at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land (BAPL) in a remote part of Washington State.
A Just By Seeing Mantra that Rinpoche had made into a sign at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, August 2018. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
During Rinpoche’s time at BAPL, the decorations on the throne of the large Amitabha Buddha statue were completed. Rinpoche and Sangha made extensive flower offerings. Rinpoche also had many signs made for animal statues on the land.
While in Washington State, Rinpoche visited Pamtingpa Center, in Tonasket, Washington. Rinpoche and Sangha also took a boat out onto a lake to bless all the sentient beings in the water.
Blessing the sentient beings in the lake, Washington, US, July 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
In August, Rinpoche visited Maitripa College and FPMT International Office in Portland, Oregon, for a week. Then Rinpoche spent a week in Boston, Massachusetts, giving teachings and initiations at Kurukulla Center.
Rinpoche then flew to California for a brief visit to his home, Kachoe Dechen Ling, in Aptos, and for annual medical checkups.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche and H.E. Ling Rinpoche, Kachoe Dechen Ling, Aptos, California, US, August 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
While in Aptos, Rinpoche invited H.E. Ling Rinpoche, who was on a West Coast tour, to stay one night at Kachoe Dechen Ling. Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave H.E. Ling Rinpoche a tour of the holy objects and showed H.E. Ling Rinpoche the collection of precious relics there. Dinner was offered to H.E. Ling Rinpoche and after dinner both Rinpoches did protector prayers together.
H.E. Ling Rinpoche and Lama Zopa Rinpoche looking at a relic, Kachoe Dechen Ling, Aptos, California, US, August 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
On another day, Rinpoche invited Geshe Ngawang Dakpa, the resident geshe at Tse Chen Ling in San Francisco, for lunch. Rinpoche also visited the nearby Land of Medicine Buddha to check on the progress of the stupa being built. More than fifty students saw Rinpoche off at the airport for his flight to India.
Rinpoche and Denice Macy, former director of Land of Medicine Buddha, in front of stupa being built at Land of Medicine Buddha, Soquel, California, US, August 2018. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
See a NEW photo album with more photos from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s three months in the United States:
https://fpmt.org/teachers/zopa/gallery/united-states-june-august-2018/
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