Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice

Lama Zopa Rinoche in front of the new bus that serves Maitreya School students and the children who are part of the Tara Children’s Project, Root Institute, Bodhgaya, January 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“As soon as your object of concern changes from yourself to someone else, your heart is released from the bondage of the self-cherishing thought. As soon as you change the object of your cherishing, there is peace in your heart.”

– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from the book Door to Satisfaction, published by Wisdom Publications

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an organization dedicated to preserving Mahayana Buddhism through offering the Buddha’s authentic teachings and to facilitating reflection, meditation, practice and the opportunity to actualize and directly experience the Buddha’s teachings. Sign up to receive news and updates.

His Holiness the Karmapa and Lama Zopa Rinpoche walking from Maitreya School to Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, January 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“Each one of us is responsible for all other living beings’ happiness, besides our own. As a result, your loving kindness is the most wish-fulfilling thing in life, more precious than anything else in this world. That makes for a most satisfying, fulfilling life.”

– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from the “Lam-Rim Topics: Compassion” page on “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book,” created by the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive 

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

Mahabodhi Temple and grounds at night, Bodhgaya, India, January 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“I think you are very fortunate to be able to come to Bodhgaya, where a thousand buddhas will descend, place their holy feet, display holy deeds, and achieve enlightenment. Guru Shakyamuni Buddha is the fourth of the thousand buddhas. The rest of the buddhas will descend here and will also display the twelve deeds, and the holy deed, achieving enlightenment.

“There is a place in Bodhgaya called the Vajra Seat. This ground is blessed. Before becoming enlightened, Buddha blessed this ground so it would not be destroyed or cracked, but would stay firm. It is said that there are no earthquakes in Bodhgaya because it is blessed by Buddha, and also that this will be the last place to exist when the world ends.

“On top of receiving the blessings from this holy place, where already four buddhas have descended, so many other enlightened beings, yogis, and great bodhisattvas have come here to do pilgrimage, to pray, and to bless this place.

“It is very good while you’re here to make as many circumambulations and prayers as you can under the bodhi tree and inside the temple in front of the Buddha. Even though it is said that the bodhi tree has been cut down three times, it has the same roots as at the time of the Buddha. …”

— Lama Zopa Rinpoche, advice given to a group of Russian students on the benefits of doing practice in Bodhgaya from the “Lama Zopa Rinpoche Online Advice Book” on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive

Lama Zopa Rinpoche doing korwa at the Mahabodhi Temple, Bodhgaya, India, January 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching and giving oral transmissions to children from Ladakh at Sera Monastery, India, January 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“Your inspiration to practice Dharma is the most important thing in your life. Without Dharma there is no happiness, and there is no question that you can’t achieve enlightenment. You can’t liberate sentient beings from all the sufferings and causes and bring them to enlightenment. You can’t even achieve for yourself total liberation from samsara. All the happiness of future lives has to come from Dharma because it comes from past good karma, that which is Dharma. So, without Dharma, one can’t have any success in this life: success in business, marriage, or any happiness you want.

“So, the best thing to help others is Dharma, and the best thing to help oneself is Dharma. Among the best, most important things in this life is to meditate on the lam-rim and to have realizations –to complete the path to enlightenment and to make yourself fully qualified to liberate numberless sentient beings who are obscured and suffering and to bring them to peerless happiness and full enlightenment.”

– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from “Advice for New Students” on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with the children from the Ngari Institute of Buddhist Dialectics, Sera Monastery, India, January 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

In January, Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave many oral transmissions and teachings to school children from the Ngari Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Ladakh, India. The school was set up by the monks of Ngari Khangtsen at Sera Je Monastery in South India. The children had been brought to Sera Je for the recent Jangchup Lamrim teachings by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.  

Lama Zopa Rinpoche sponsors the school childrens’ meals through the Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund. The children at the Ngari Institute are orphans or have come from abusive or very poor families. They follow the standard government educational curriculum during the day and learn about Tibetan Buddhism and culture during after-school hours.

Rinpoche’s assistant Ven. Roger Kunsang reported that the children have memorized many prayers and Lama Chöpa and “they know the tunes!”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching and giving oral transmissions to children from Ladakh at Sera Monastery, India, January 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching and giving oral transmissions to children from Ladakh at Sera Monastery, India, January 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“The Destroyer Qualified Gone Beyond One (Bhagawan) said, ‘The bodhisattva does not follow many Dharmas. The bodhisattva holds one Dharma well and realizes it well. The whole Buddhadharma will be in the hand of that person.’ What is that Dharma? It is great COMPASSION. (From the Chenrezig Sutra Well-Condensed Dharma.)”

– Lama Zopa Rinpoche from “Compassion Is of the Utmost Need”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an organization dedicated to preserving Mahayana Buddhism through offering the Buddha’s authentic teachings and to facilitating reflection, meditation, practice and the opportunity to actualize and directly experience the Buddha’s teachings. Sign up to receive news and updates.

His Holiness the Karmapa and Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, January 31, 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

His Holiness the Karmapa visited Root Institute and Maitreya School in Bodhgaya, India, on January 31. Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who is currently staying at Root Institute, welcomed the Karmapa. After giving a talk to students and teachers at the Maitreya School, His Holiness offered a teaching in the main gompa at Root Institute.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an organization dedicated to preserving Mahayana Buddhism through offering the Buddha’s authentic teachings and to facilitating reflection, meditation, practice and the opportunity to actualize and directly experience the Buddha’s teachings. Sign up to receive news and updates. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche talking to the reincarnation of Gen Lamrimpa, Sera Monastery, India, January 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

While staying at Sera Monastery in India, Lama Zopa Rinpoche visited with many young tulkus including the reincarnation of Gen Lamrimpa, who is currently studying at Sera Me. The previous Gen Lamrimpa was born in Tibet in 1936 and was an accomplished meditator and teacher. He is well known to many Western Dharma students for leading a year-long shamatha retreat at Cloud Mountain Retreat Center in the US Pacific Northwest. His teachings from this retreat were published in the books How to Practice Shamatha Meditation (also published as Calming the Mind) and How to Realize Emptiness.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with the tulku of Gen Lamrimpa, Sera Me Monastery, India, January 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an organization dedicated to preserving Mahayana Buddhism through offering the Buddha’s authentic teachings and to facilitating reflection, meditation, practice and the opportunity to actualize and directly experience the Buddha’s teachings. Sign up to receive news and updates. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche explaining in a video interview the path to enlightenment and how fortunate all are, Osel Labrang, Sera Je Monastery, India, January 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“Think, ‘How fortunate I am that I am able to offer (service) in the present, in the future,’ so rather than taking it as a burden, follow the bodhisattvas’ path. Follow the bodhisattvas’ attitude – that’s the way to achieve enlightenment. So in that way you achieve enlightenment very fast, without taking many eons. So the stronger compassion you have, how much good heart you have, you are able to achieve enlightenment quicker. So how much you are able to offer service to sentient beings, that much negative karma, so many eons of negative karma gets purified and you collect inconceivable merit and so that makes you able to achieve enlightenment quickly – quicker.”

– Lama Zopa Rinpoche from “Rejoice in Your Efforts,” new from the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

Learn more about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche and his beneficial activities by visiting Rinpoche’s homepage, where you will find links to Rinpoche’s schedule, new advice, recent video, photos and more.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche doing korwa around Mahabodhi Stupa at night, Bodhgaya, India, January 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche arrived in Bodhgaya this week. Bodhgaya is the location of the Mahabodhi Stupa, marking the location where Shakyamuni Buddha became enlightened. 

Mahabodhi Stupa, Bodhgaya, India, January 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an organization dedicated to preserving Mahayana Buddhism through offering the Buddha’s authentic teachings and to facilitating reflection, meditation, practice and the opportunity to actualize and directly experience the Buddha’s teachings. Sign up to receive news and updates. 

Long life puja, Sera Je Monastery, India, January 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

In January, a long life puja was done at Sera Je Monastery for all the former abbots, current abbot and the most senior monks who were at Buxa Duar, including Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Buxa Duar is where many Tibetan monastics first settled after escaping from Tibet in 1959. At Buxa, the monks continued with their monastic education in exile, including Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who met Lama Yeshe at Buxa and become his student. Rinpoche had been staying at Sera Je for part of December 2013 and January 2014. 

Monks leaving the long life puja, Sera Je Monastery, India, January 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an organization dedicated to preserving Mahayana Buddhism through offering the Buddha’s authentic teachings and to facilitating reflection, meditation, practice and the opportunity to actualize and directly experience the Buddha’s teachings. Sign up to receive news and updates. 

Geshe Domo Rinpoche’s tulku with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Domo Labrang, Sera Monastery, India, January 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche visited the young Domo Geshe Rinpoche at Domo Labrang at Sera Je Monastry. Lama Zopa Rinpoche was a guest for dinner. As a boy, Lama Zopa Rinpoche was ordained and educated at Domo Geshe Rinpoche’s Drugkar Monastery.  

Lama Zopa Rinpoche offering gifts to Domo Geshe Rinpoche after arriving for dinner at Domo Labrang, Sera Je Monastery, India, January 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Ven. Max Mathews (known as Mummy Max) was a very early student of Lama Yesha and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. She recounted a story about taking Domo Geshe Rinpoche and Lama Yeshe for a week on Dal Lake in Srinagar, Kashmir, in the forthcoming Lama Yeshe biography Big Love. “[Domo Geshe Rinpoche] and Lama were like two little old ladies, cooking, enjoying the lake, the flowers, the peace, and laughing at me. They laughed at everything,” Max said.

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