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Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice
Lama Zopa Rinpoche and OM MANI PADME HUM mantra at Kachoe Dechen Ling, Aptos, California, November 16, 2013. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche, while in the garden at Kachoe Dechen Ling, said, “Everywhere you look, you are reminded of Dharma … not samsara.”
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 after a trip to the local garden shop directing where the flowers go and creating beautiful offerings to all the gurus, buddhas and bodhisattvas and holy beings! Kachoe Dechen Ling, Aptos, California, November 17, 2013. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
[When] you go shopping, watch your motivation, prepare your motivation. When you are in the shop either fulfill the wishes of the guru or shop to benefit and serve other sentient beings. Think that the ultimate purpose is to fulfill the guru’s advice. So you buy these things to survive and to fulfill the wishes of the guru or benefit sentient beings. In this way shopping becomes the antidote to attachment, becomes virtuous activity, Dharma, and you collect extensive merit.
– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from the advice “Making Ordinary Life Actions Meaningful,” 2007
More advice can be found on the page “Advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche.”
Learn more about Lama Zopa Rinpoche, spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), and Rinpoche’s vision for a better world. Sign up to receive news and updates.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche on wharf near Kachoe Dechen Ling, California, September 2013. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche as he blesses all the sentient beings in the ocean. While Rinpoche has been staying in California, he frequently goes with Sangha and Namgyälma mantra boards to a wharf near Kachoe Dechen Ling or to the beach. The mantra boards are placed in the water and Rinpoche chants mantras, says prayers and pours blessed water into the ocean.
You can watch more videos of Rinpoche blessing all sentient beings in the ocean on the “Lama Zopa Rinpoche Video” page.
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.
One of the altars at Kachoe Dechen Ling, Aptos, California, November 2013. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
“… All the suffering of samsara comes from the mind. Happiness, liberation and enlightenment come from the mind. Suffering comes from the unsubdued mind. Liberation and enlightenment come from the subdued mind, therefore, subduing the mind is essential. So what Buddha said is just an example, manifesting numberless forms naturally without effort – as impure forms to sentient beings who have an impure mind, and as pure forms to sentient beings with a pure mind,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrote to a new student in a letter recently posted to Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive’s “Lama Zopa Rinpoche Online Advice Book.”
The letter continues:
“In Buddhism, especially in Mahayana Buddhism, guru devotion is the root of the path to enlightenment. The Buddha’s 84,000 teachings have three levels. There are the Hinayana (Lesser Vehicle) teachings for the lower capable being. For those with greater intelligence and capacity, Buddha revealed the Mahayana Paramitayana teachings. Then for those with higher intelligence, merit or capacity, Buddha taught Mahayana Secret Mantra – Vajrayana.
“In Hinayana, we don’t look at the guru as a buddha, but we respect the guru as if he is a buddha and we obey the guru, the abbot who grants ordination and gives teachings. In Mahayana Paramitayana, we look at the guru as a buddha, having no mistakes but only qualities. In tantra, on that basis – seeing the guru as a buddha – we look at the guru in the pure form of a buddha, we look at the essence as a buddha.
“Obedience is most important, otherwise we cannot achieve realizations; we cannot achieve enlightenment. …”
You can read the entire letter on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website.
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 and Tenzin Ösel Hita, Santa Cruz, California, November 3, 2013. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
In early November, Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Tenzin Ösel Hita ate at a vegan restaurant in Santa Cruz, California, where they discussed the menu. According to Rinpoche’s assistant Ven. Roger, Rinpoche is creating his own cook book.
Rinpoche has been strongly encouraging students to become vegetarian. In a letter published in the FPMT Annual Review 2011, Rinpoche reflected:
When I was in the hospital [after manifesting a stroke in April 2011], I saw a program about animals that were sold to be killed in Indonesia and other countries for live export … It didn’t show how they were killed, but it showed one cow that was on the platform, with the head tied, being pulled down to be killed. The cow didn’t want to go and the man was pulling it. I thought, ‘I don’t have power to stop all this killing, but what I can do is to try to inspire people to become vegetarian.’
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.
For more on this topic, see Mandala’s archive stories on vegetarianism and veganism.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche praying at Kachoe Dechen Ling, Aptos, California, US, November 11, 2013. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
“[Late Sunday night] Lama Zopa Rinpoche did many prayers for all those who have died in the Philippines, Vietnam and also Somalia (Vajrasattva, Ksitigarbha and later planning to do the Eight Prayers to Benefit the Dead) as well as for all those still suffering and all beings,” shared Ven. Roger Kunsang, Rinpoche’s assistant and CEO of FPMT.
For on what to do for the dying and those who have died, visit FPMT’s page ”Essential Practices for the Time of Death.”
Learn more about Lama Zopa Rinpoche, spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), and Rinpoche’s vision for a better world. Sign up to receive news and updates.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche with recently consecrated statues, Kachoe Dechen Ling, California, October 23, 2013. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
Lama Zopa: You don’t have to feel alone. There are numberless Buddhas and Bodhisattvas always with you. They understand you with compassion.
– From Ven. Roger Kunsang’s Twitter page, posted on September 7, 2013
Ven. Roger Kunsang, Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s assistant and CEO of FPMT Inc., shares Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent pith sayings on Ven. Roger’s Twitter page. (You can also read them on Ven. Roger’s Facebook page.)
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 watching a live webstream of His Holiness the Dalai Lama teaching in New York City, Kachoe Dechen Ling, California, October 18, 2013. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Lama Zopa: Buddha has the most qualities, but it is every single sentient being who is most kind.
– From Ven. Roger Kunsang’s Twitter page, posted on November 7, 2013
Ven. Roger Kunsang, Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s assistant and CEO of FPMT Inc., shares Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent pith sayings on Ven. Roger’s Twitter page. (You can also read them on Ven. Roger’s Facebook page.)
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.
“The initial reason why people come to a Dharma center is not for the food but for the teachings and meditations; they are a little bored with the lives they have and are looking for something new. However, the conditions at the center, and especially the food, are a very important support for the teachings and meditations. Sometimes in the past when I would teach on impermanence, the hells and the eight worldly dharmas, people would get scared and leave; but if the food was good, they would stay. That’s one way to keep them!
So I will explain a short meditation for cooks.” …
Lama Zopa Rinpoche circumambulating the stupa in the backyard of Kachoe Dechen Ling, California, November 2013. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
“The stupa in the backyard of Kachoe Dechen Ling, Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s home in California, was built for Rinpoche’s dog – called ‘Om Mani Padme Hum’ – to circumambulate,” shared Ven. Roger Kunsang, Rinpoche’s long-time assistant. “Rinpoche was very skillful to not mention it was the for the dog until the stupa was finished.”
You can read Rinpoche’s advice on circumambulation, featured in Mandala July-September 2009, to learn more about this powerful practice for accumulating merit and purifying negativities.
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 choosing flower offerings for Kachoe Dechen Ling, California, September 21, 2013. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
Watch video of Lama Zopa Rinpoche shopping for flower offerings. Kachoe Dechen Ling, Rinpoche’s house in California, has many holy objects surrounded by beautiful and carefully arranged flower offerings. In this video, Rinpoche walks around a garden center with some of the flowers he’s picked out.
You can watch more videos of Rinpoche on “Lama Zopa Rinpoche Video” page.
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 doing prayers, sitting on the floor in his room at Kachoe Dechen Ling, Aptos, California, November 2, 2013. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
“Lama Zopa: you can study Dharma a long time but if you don’t give up attachment you’re not practicing Dharma … Cause of happiness.”
– From Ven. Roger Kunsang’s Twitter page, posted on September 7, 2013
Ven. Roger Kunsang, Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s assistant and CEO of FPMT Inc., shares Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent pith sayings on Ven. Roger’s Twitter page. (You can also read them on Ven. Roger’s Facebook page.)
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.