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Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice
Lama Zopa Rinpoche and monks offer incense puja on top of hill at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, August 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:
Rinpoche begins this teaching explaining, You can’t lead sentient beings to enlightenment with an ignorant mind. Even Arhats cannot do perfect work for sentient beings because they have not abandoned the four causes of unknowing which are unknowing due to the subtlety of karma, unknowing due to the remoteness of time, unknowing due to the profound and subtle qualities of the buddhas, and unknowing due to the remoteness of the place. Rinpoche discusses each of these causes in detail.
The reason to meditate and practice Dharma is to subdue your mind so you can do perfect work for others without the slightest mistake. What you must subdue and cease is the anger, attachment, self-cherishing thought, and ignorance. Meditating on impermanence and death is like the king to control and subdue the mind.
By having the ten innermost jewels of the Kadampas in your heart, this destroys all the hallucination of this world and dries up the oceans of attachment. The fortress of delusions collapses. You become a happy person when you renounce worldly concern and live in the ten innermost jewels. Happiness starts when you avert thoughts of desire for this life.
If you act according to holy Dharma, you can benefit yourself and others. If you practice holy Dharma well, even in this life you will be happier than others who work only for this life and whose main practice is to achieve desire in this life. If you desire happiness, then give up worldly desire.
We invite you to go deeper into the topics presented here, plus many others, by watching Rinpoche’s video and reading the full transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “ Living in the Ten Innermost Jewels is the Method to Achieve Happiness“:
https://youtu.be/gymxwIYZ3G8
- Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
- Ten Innermost Jewels of the Kadampas
- Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings
Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 and find links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/announcements/resources-for-coronavirus-pandemic/advice-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche-for-coronavirus/
Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”
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 explaining the Dharma messages he has written on stuffed toys, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, August 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:
Rinpoche begins this teaching asking: As long as you are not free from samsara, how can you be well when you have the three types of suffering? To subdue the mind, you must remember impermanence and death.
Rinpoche mentions the six shortcomings of not remembering death from Phabongkha Rinpoche’s Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand:
- Not remembering Dharma;
- Even though you remember Dharma, you don’t practice it;
- Even though you practice Dharma, you are not able to practice it purely;
- Even if you practice Dharma purely, you will not do it precisely and continuously;
- You make yourself evil (meaning: you engage in negative karma); and
- At the time of death, you will die with much upsetness (worry).
Right now you think Dharma is good, but you don’t practice it because you think, Later, after some time I will do this. Then suddenly death comes and life is gone. There is no more time to practice, and the mind becomes so upset. The shortcomings of negative karma, the lower realms’ suffering, is unbelievable. Even a great suffering in the human realm cannot be compared to a small suffering in hell. Unless negative karma finishes, you will never be separated from unbearable suffering.
Rinpoche mentions the benefits of remembering death:
- It is highly meaningful;
- It is very powerful in order to overcome the delusions;
- It makes you follow Dharma;
- It persuades you to put effort into Dharma;
- It makes you actualize Dharma; and
- When you die, you die with great happiness.
The best Dharma practitioners die happy, the middling die without sadness, and the least die without regret.
It is very effective for the mind to meditate on the aspects of death.
When you die, the appearances of this life are like last night’s dream. Even though you believed that the dream was real life, when you look back at the time of death you can see it is totally false. So it is not worth being attached to, grasping at, or angry at—nothing to hate, nothing to destroy, nothing is real.
Desire enjoyments are like an illusion party. It is like a mirage, an hallucination to believe this is happiness. Meaningless activities are like ripples on water. There is no happiness to enjoy in future life from doing activities for the pleasure of this life alone. And while you are distracted by worldly concern, death will come. Since you have to leave everything behind, don’t be attached to things of this life. Everything that belongs to you is left behind at the time of death. By training your mind in death and impermanence, you avert your attraction to the appearances of this life. When you no longer believe in the attraction to the perfections of this life, you have generated renunciation of samsara.
Meditation of death and impermanence is the root of all qualities. Among all the recognitions, recognition of death and impermanence is the best. Remembering death stops the delusions from arising and stops you from engaging in negative karma. The mind is subdued by meditating on death and impermanence.
We invite you to go deeper into the topics presented here, plus many others, by watching Rinpoche’s video and reading the full transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “Subdue Your Mind by Meditating on Death-Impermanence”:
https://youtu.be/VYM5NxJACqA
- Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
- Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand by Phabongka Dechen Nyingpo
- Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings
Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 and find links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/announcements/resources-for-coronavirus-pandemic/advice-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche-for-coronavirus/
Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”
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 and monks offer incense puja on top of hill at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, August 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:
Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching explaining that we are extremely fortunate to be alive today. Rinpoche shares the news that a young Tibetan nun from Kopan Nunnery, Ani Dechen, died. Rinpoche invites everyone to recite King of Prayers and do Chenrezig practice.
Rinpoche shares several stories of individuals recalling their past lives, including Rinpoche’s own experiences.
The real meaning of life is to benefit sentient beings. It is not enough to achieve the blissful state of peace, liberation from samsara, for oneself, but to free everyone from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment by oneself alone.
One is so lucky to even be able to think about bodhichitta. Even if you don’t have a realization of bodhichitta, to even be able to think of and recite the words is unbelievable.
If you work for an FPMT center, you are practicing guru yoga. If you are a director, you should expect that people will criticize you. If you expect it from the beginning, then it doesn’t become a shock for you. Receiving a billion dollars a day is nothing compared to the benefits of serving the guru. You have to study the subject of guru devotion and relate it to working at a center. Then, you can see that working for a center makes your life most meaningful, not only for yourself but for numberless sentient beings.
For ordinary beings, the meditation on death and impermanence is the most important. By remembering impermanence and death, you conquer laziness and whatever you do becomes holy Dharma. The reality is: by tomorrow your body could become a corpse. You cannot just live a comfortable life thinking, “I won’t die today.” When you think of death and impermanence, there is no choice but to practice Dharma.
Phabongkha Rinpoche explains in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand: By remembering death, at first, it makes you follow Dharma. In the middle, it persuades your mind in Dharma. At the end, it makes you actualize Dharma, that is, achieve enlightenment.
One must meditate on the aspects of death. For example, meditate on death by visualizing your own death according to the customs of the country in which you live. You must think that death is definite. There are three reasons why death is definite:
- The Lord or Death will definitely come and no condition can stop it.
- Nothing can be added to your life, and it is continuously decreasing.
- Even while you are alive, there is no time to practice Dharma (because your motivation is your attachment to the happiness of this life).
Rinpoche then leads practices for the Kopan nun who died. He advises, “Everybody should pray for her. The Kopan nuns and monks, everybody, should pray for her, and, of course, if possible all FPMT Sangha and lay [people].” King of Prayers and Chenrezig Mantra and Request are then recited. (For links to materials, please see below.)
We invite you to go deeper into the topics presented here, plus many others, by watching Rinpoche’s video and reading the full transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “For Ordinary Beings, the Meditation on Death-Impermanence Is the Most Important”:
https://youtu.be/UN1UInXwQUk
- Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
- King of Prayers
- Chenrezig Mantra and Request
- Chenrezig Longest Mantra
- Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings
Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 and find links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/announcements/resources-for-coronavirus-pandemic/advice-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche-for-coronavirus/
Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”
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 attends annual consecration ceremony at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, July 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Every year at Kopan Monastery a three-day consecration ceremony is performed by the Lama Gyupa monks. This year, Lama Zopa Rinpoche attended the afternoon session, in the recently rebuilt Chenrezig gompa, of the ceremony’s second day, which was also Chokhor Duchen. (For scenes from the ceremony, please see the video below.)
Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi with Kopan Lama Gyupa monks during annual consecration ceremony, Kopan Monastery, July 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
The first day began with self-initiation in the morning and the consecration ceremony in the afternoon. On the second day, the practices done included Yamantaka Thirteen Deities sadhana, self-initiation, and increasing fire puja in the morning and the consecration ceremony in the afternoon. On the third day, the practices included Yamantaka Thirteen Deities sadhana, peaceful fire puja, and protector puja and tsog offering.
Please enjoy scenes from the annual consecration ceremony at Kopan Monastery:
https://youtu.be/EDRzJbc79I0
Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 and find links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/announcements/resources-for-coronavirus-pandemic/advice-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche-for-coronavirus/
Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”
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.
Tsoknyi Rinpoche, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and Khadro-la enjoying a break during a day of fire and incenses pujas, Kathmandu, Nepal, August 2020. Photo by Ven. Lhundrup Topgye.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:
Lama Zopa Rinpoche starts this teaching discussing the concept of equanimity. We think of ourselves as the most important and that our happiness is most important. However, every single being is as important as we are, and we can realize this by equalizing and exchanging ourselves with others. There is no proof or single logical reason that even a person who harms you is less important than you. Further, by harming others you are creating the cause to be harmed by them. You are so fortunate to be able to open your mind to understanding karma.
If you check, you will see that all suffering comes from cherishing “I” and all happiness comes from cherishing others. Those who harm you give you the opportunity to practice the perfection of patience, through which you can achieve enlightenment. So that person gives you enlightenment! Because you harmed others in the past, they are harming you now, which causes them to be reborn in the lower realms. If you think of karma, instead of wanting to harm that person, unbelievable compassion for that person arises, and you only want to help them.
Renouncing the “I” and cherishing others is what makes you enlightened. Since all of your happiness, including Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, comes from sentient beings, how dare you harm them! If someone treats you badly, if your bodhichitta is very powerful, many eons of negative karma get purified.
When you fulfill the guru’s wishes and advice, it is the same as doing many preliminary practices. Even if the work is very hard with many problems and difficulties, and you are bearing many hardships, you should know this is something to enjoy the most, because it contains many hundreds of prostration, many thousands of Vajrasattva mantras, mandala offerings, and so forth within the work. It is most amazing. It becomes the happiest thing in your life.
If you experience suffering when you correctly follow the virtuous friend, it means that an inconceivable amount of negative karma is getting purified. If you are following the guru’s advice and get sick or experience problems, this is a very good thing because it is unbelievable purification—many many eons of suffering in the lower realms gets purified. How much purification happens depends on how well you practice. If you think you are fulfilling the guru’s wishes and advice, there are no problems, and you collect showers of good karma. Guru devotion is not some Tibetan lamas’ trip; it generates realizations of the path.
Referring to a text by Lama Tsongkhapa, Rinpoche emphasized that if the four dharmas (the four thoughts that turn the mind toward Dharma) are stabilized, the rest of the virtues will be instantly generated. The four dharmas are: 1. The perfect human rebirth, how it is highly meaningful; 2. The precious human rebirth is difficult to find again; 3. Impermanence-death; and 4. Karma. If you don’t have renunciation of this life, then renunciation of samsara, your practice won’t be a cause of liberation. It will be a cause of samsara.
We invite you to go deeper into the topics presented here, plus many others, by watching Rinpoche’s video and reading the full transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “Fulfilling the Guru’s Wishes and Advice Is the Most Enjoyable Thing in Life”:
https://youtu.be/S8YhdmUiBzQ
- Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
- Advice to Correctly Follow the Virtuous Friend with Thought and Action: The Nine Attitudes of Guru Devotion
- Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings
Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 and find links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/announcements/resources-for-coronavirus-pandemic/advice-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche-for-coronavirus/
Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”
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.
The core group of lama who have completed more than forty fire pujas for purification and healing. From left, Abbot of Mindroling Monastery, Khadro-la, Mingyur Rinpoche, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, abbot of Shechen Monastery, Nepal, July 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:
Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching explaining that lojong involves utilizing happiness and suffering on the path to enlightenment. In this way, everything one experiences is an opportunity for thought transformation.
This virus is teaching us about karma, but we don’t recognize this due to ignorance. We think suffering and happiness come from outside the mind, but if you understand karma, you know that it all comes from the mind. While you are a human being, this is the only chance to understand karma—not as a hell being, preta, or animal.
Even though we don’t like suffering, we run toward it and destroy happiness because sentient beings are totally ignorant of the cause of suffering and the cause of happiness. You are born as a human being this one time but then use the human capacity, mind, and intelligence in the wrong way to cause so much harm. We can use the present difficult situation in the world to develop compassion and to try to become better human beings, not harm the world and others, and at least bring happiness and peace to ourselves instead of becoming crazy. You are responsible to free the numberless sentient beings in the numberless universes, including the mosquito buzzing around in your ear!
You are still suffering in samsara because you didn’t change your mind into bodhichitta like Buddha did. Because you have Buddha nature, you have the potential to become an enlightened being. However, we live our lives running toward offering service to the self-cherishing thought, which is your worst enemy. Because of this we have been suffering from beginningless time up to now.
After meeting the Dharma you may study, do retreat, and learn many things, but sometimes nothing happens to your mind, and it may even become worse! When your mind is weak and you listen to the Dharma but can’t grasp words or understand the meaning, rely on the power of the holy merit field: Buddha, Dharma, Sangha in many different aspects. The main essence, the highest merit field is the guru. By depending on the special merit field, strive in the pure path to liberation and the state of omniscience.
If you don’t collect merit with outer and inner offerings, nothing will happen to your mind. The most important thing is to make offerings with a motivation possessed by bodhichitta, transformed in bodhichitta.
Don’t waste your human body, which has the eight freedoms and the ten richnesses. Make it meaningful. The essence is to create the cause for every single transmigratory being to achieve liberation and the state of omniscience, to achieve enlightenment for that. Happiness, the benefits, the realizations, the happiness within samsara, liberation, enlightenment—everything has to come from your mind.
We invite you to go deeper into the topics presented here, plus many others, by watching Rinpoche’s video and reading the full transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “If You Don’t Collect Merits Nothing Will Happen in Your Mind“:
https://youtu.be/j41TSWp8XfU
Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 and find links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/announcements/resources-for-coronavirus-pandemic/advice-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche-for-coronavirus/
Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”
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 fire puja, Kathmandu, Nepal, July 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche made these comments in April 2014 after seeing images of the suffering of many people on television.
It’s important to use the situation to remind yourself how fortunate you are to still have a human body and a perfect human rebirth, which is most difficult to find, and that you have met the Buddhadharma and the virtuous friend.
Remind yourself how it’s most fortunate to still be a human being and not to waste it, and to practice the holy Dharma to purify and collect merit and actualize the path.
Use these kinds of situations to be inspired. The 270 people who died in the airplane accident, the sixteen Sherpas who died on Mount Everest, and so forth—use all these situations to remind yourself to practice Dharma and to generate compassion for those sentient beings and for all the suffering sentient beings.
This isn’t the first time [they have suffered and died like this]. They have experienced the suffering of pain, the suffering of change, and pervasive compounded suffering numberless times.
Then it’s helpful and becomes a meditation of the path of the lower, middle, and higher capable beings. Think of the suffering nature of samsara that has been experienced numberless times. This makes it useful when you hear that information and news.
This advice “Watching the News” was originally published in “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book” on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/watching-news
Watch the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 and find links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/announcements/resources-for-coronavirus-pandemic/advice-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche-for-coronavirus/
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 reciting mantras and making prayers on stuffed toys before giving them away. The mantras recited on them bless anyone who then sees or touches them, Kopan Monastery, June 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:
Rinpoche begins this teaching explaining that keeping morality is the basis for practicing lojong (thought transformation). The habit for negative karma causes us to suffer in samsara continuously. By practicing the lamrim, with morality as the basis, you develop the inspiration and energy to stop your habit of non-virtue. Instead of becoming habituated toward negative karma, you develop the habit of living your life with bodhichitta and the awareness of emptiness. Everything we see, whatever appears, is a total hallucination based on the habits of our mind. So if possible, we should get into the habit of meditating on emptiness no matter what we are doing. And by developing the habit of bodhichitta, the good heart—wow—this is like making life into a diamond.
In this life we are responsible for our future lives’ happiness and suffering. To eliminate the suffering of future lives we have to stop running toward whatever we think is the best pleasure and following desire without thinking of future happiness or enlightenment. Samsaric pleasures are like a cheating cannibal. At first you completely trust them, think they are very sweet and kind to you, but then after some time they eat you.
To generate real bodhichitta, first you need to have strong renunciation. You need to see sentient beings’ suffering as if you fell into a red-hot fire. And before that, you have to have strong renunciation in your own samsara. With full renunciation of the three kinds of suffering (suffering of pain, suffering of change, and pervasive compounding suffering) comes great compassion for the suffering of others. The more compassion and bodhichitta you have, the happier you are to take responsibility for freeing others from the oceans of samsaric suffering by bringing them to enlightenment.
It is important to continuously have determination to practice your vows correctly and to learn at least the essence of the vows. Even if you don’t learn an extensive explanation of the vows, if you have the essence, then mistakes are not as likely to happen. In order to protect yourself, you have to have a plan for what to do after you ordain. You have to have somebody teaching you and guiding you. One of the purposes of reciting Six-Session Guru Yoga is to go over the vows you have taken.
There are many purification practices one can engage in to purify negative karma created: self-initiation, prostrations to the Thirty-Five Buddhas, Vajrasattva practice, tsog offering, and reciting mantras. You also need to know the four doors for creating downfalls (breaking vows): lack of conscientiousness, lack of respect, not understanding the vow, and having many delusions. Even if you don’t know the vows extensively, understanding the essence is very important.
We invite you to go deeper into the topics presented here, plus many others, by watching Rinpoche’s video and reading the full transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “The Benefits of Keeping Vows and the Shortcomings of Degenerating Them”:
https://youtu.be/rqX2BuhPu0k
- Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
- Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings
- You can find practices mentioned by Rinpoche in the FPMT Foundation Store
- For more on mantras, see our Mantras resource page
Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 and find links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/announcements/resources-for-coronavirus-pandemic/advice-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche-for-coronavirus/
Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”
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 on top of Kopan Hill, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, May 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:
This teaching was offered on Chokhor Duchen (July 24), which is one of the holy days of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, when the power of any meritorious action is multiplied 100 million times. Chokhor Duchen commemorates the anniversary of Shakyamuni Buddha’s first teaching after showing the aspect of attaining enlightenment.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching discussing the twelve deeds done by Shakyamuni Buddha, which reveal why we need to practice Dharma.
Shakyamuni Buddha gave three turnings of the wheel of Dharma: the four noble truth teachings in Sarnath; the Prajnaparamita teachings in Rajgir; and the Chittamatra view. On wheel-turning days, because merit is multiplied by 100 million, Rinpoche is asking us to “wake up” and not waste the opportunity by being distracted by worldly pleasures and worldly concerns. For example, writing sutras in gold ink is a way to collect skies of merit.
Rinpoche shares more about the benefits of the Sutra of Great Liberation, including that if you read it just before you die you are immediately rescued from the lower realms. Rinpoche continues offering the oral transmission of this powerful sutra.
We invite you to go deeper into the topics presented here, plus many others, by watching Rinpoche’s video and reading the full transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “Wake Up—Don’t Waste the Four Holy Days of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha“:
https://youtu.be/N5hncWNKtn8
- Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
- For more on the four holy days of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, see Practice on Merit Multiplying Days and Eclipses
- Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings
Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 and find links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/announcements/resources-for-coronavirus-pandemic/advice-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche-for-coronavirus/
Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”
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.
Khadro-la; Tsoknyi Rinpoche; Mingyur Rinpoche; Lama Zopa Rinpoche; the Abbot of Shechen Monastery, Yeshe Gyaltsan; the Abbot of Mindroling Monastery, Theckchok Gyaltsan; and Kopan Monastery abbot Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi offering fire pujas. These fire pujas are for all beings and the current world situation, for healing and purifying obstacles, Kopan Nunnery, Nepal, July 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
More than forty fire pujas are being done in Nepal to purify and heal the coronavirus pandemic situation and its negative impact in Nepal and around the world.
Based on advice from Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drönme (Khadro-la), several high lamas and abbots in Nepal are participating in the fire pujas, which began earlier in the month. The fire pujas, which require extensive preparations, are being done in different locations in Kathmandu.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche during a fire puja held at Kopan Nunnery, Nepal, July 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
In a message written on Chokhor Duchen (July 24), Khadro-la explains the purpose of the ritual practices as well as all the practices she has initiated. After acknowledging the supreme importance of the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, she writes:
“In these most decadent of times, the world we live in has become a frightening place. It is if we are being held between the very fangs of the lord of death himself. As such, it is correct to petition the three Rare and Sublime Ones to send forth a downpour of cooling nectar to, extinguish, pacify, and thoroughly wash away the raging fires of the COVID-19 pandemic. Similarly, may improper action and thought, that which serves to belittle and harm others, saber rattling, the readying of weapons, and all forms of warfare be naturally pacified. May virtue increase and be completed in a perfect and timely way and may the sun of truth never set on the plight of the Tibetan people.
“In essence, may the mistaking of appearances, the clouds of grasping at independent existence, co-emergent ignorance, which shower such suffering, be completely blown away, allowing the naturally bright sun—the natural and spontaneously present wisdom, a natural state of emptiness and awareness conjoined which is arisen in of itself and abides inherently awake and self-liberated. It is the primordial nature, the basic-space of the ground that pervades all beings—to rise without impediment in a bright and clear sky; it’s natural and brilliant knowledge and wisdom radiating outwardly as the illumination of the unmistaken mutual dependence of things.
“I considered that if the causes were correctly assembled, the ensuing result would prove meaningful.”
The tantric college monks and other monks offering prayers, while Khadro-la, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, Mingyur Rinpoche, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, the Abbot of Shechen Monastery, the Abbot of Mindroling Monastery, and Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi offer the fire pujas, Kopan Nunnery, Nepal, July 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
(From left) The Abbot of Shechen Monastery, Khadro-la, Mingyur Rinpoche, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, the Abbot of Mindroling Monastery, and Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi in the gardens at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, July 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
The core group of lamas participating in the fire pujas are Khadro-la; Tsoknyi Rinpoche; Mingyur Rinpoche; Lama Zopa Rinpoche; the Abbot of Shechen Monastery, Yeshe Gyaltsan; and the Abbot of Mindroling Monastery, Theckchok Gyaltsan. They have been joined by Osel Dorje Rinpoche, Kopan Monastery abbot Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi, and other geshes, depending on the day and location.
(From left) Khadro-la, the Abbot of Shechen Monastery, Mingyur Rinpoche, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, the Abbot of Mindroling Monastery, and Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi doing an incense puja at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, July 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
The fire pujas are often accompanied by an incense puja, such as Padmasambhava incense puja or incense puja for the four directions. In total, seven sets of fire pujas will be completed by the six core lamas in the coming weeks.
Please enjoy this inspiring video of scenes from a fire puja at Kopan Nunnery:
https://youtu.be/HAJ6OtrY4Yo
PLease enjoy this inspiring video of scenes from an incense puja at Kopan Monastery:
https://youtu.be/gcXVLpiHJHE
Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 and find links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/announcements/resources-for-coronavirus-pandemic/advice-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche-for-coronavirus/
Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”
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.
The third day of preparations for a special long life puja offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Khadro-la, Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi, and about 100 senior monks are doing the preparations, Kopan Monastery, July 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:
Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching reminding us that the real purpose of life is to free the numberless sentient beings from oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment. To do that perfectly, one needs to achieve the state of omniscience, the state of perfect power to reveal the methods, and the state of complete compassion for every single sentient being. The buddhas and bodhisattvas have a hundred-thousand times more compassion for sentient beings than we have for ourselves. Since they have hundreds of thousands of times more compassion for all sentient beings than they cherish themselves—how dare we harm anyone? How can we say negative words and do harmful actions of the body, speech, and mind? Buddhas and bodhisattvas have so much concern for others that when you harm them it is like harming numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas. You are doing what they dislike. Likewise, benefiting sentient beings is the best offering to buddhas and bodhisattvas because it pleases them.
You are cheating yourself by thinking of “me, me, me” and working only for yourself because all happiness comes from sentient beings, and also Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha come from sentient beings. Because ordinary beings haven’t realized emptiness, everything appears to be truly existing by itself, existing from its own side, real. A buddha doesn’t have that. For a buddha things appear as if they are merely imputed by the mind. When we examine attachment, whatever we think is beautiful and get attached to, we think this came from its own side, but it came from our mind. We projected it. It is one thing to recognize our attachment, but we actually need to control it.
Rinpoche offered advice to FPMT’s ordained Sangha in the second part of this teaching. First, Rinpoche suggests that they should spend one, two, or three months in a monastery or nunnery, protecting themselves in a monastic setting and doing things such as sojong practice, purifying, and reviving. FPMT monks and nuns become so busy teaching, working, traveling, and working for centers and the organization that it becomes difficult to live a humble life. Rinpoche also advises that FPMT Sangha should study and meditate on the lamrim every day and read Dharma texts mindfully as an analytical meditation. If you don’t meditate on lamrim, you become undisciplined and unable to keep your vows. No matter how busy you are, meditate on the lamrim for an hour, half hour, 15 minutes, whatever one can manage. Read one lamrim text as the main essence of the whole teachings, maybe three or five times from beginning to end. If there is something you don’t know, you can write it down and ask someone who can help; and if you don’t know Tibetan, you have to depend on a translator.
Rinpoche continues his advice to FPMT Sangha explaining that they should do effortful meditation on each section of the lamrim for several months. After that, do effortless meditation for as long as it takes for the realization that the guru is a buddha. Then you will be most happy to follow the guru’s advice and wishes. Being free from samsara and achieving enlightenment depends on this and is the root of the path to enlightenment. It is easy to have lamrim realizations when you have strong devotion—great or small realizations depends on whether you have great or small devotion. Looking at the qualities of the guru, and not focusing on their mistakes, seeing whatever the guru does as positive, is the most important practice. In the view of the hallucinated mind, our own mistakes appear in the guru’s actions.
Be careful: don’t get ordained without someone to guide you. Without a monastery or nunnery to guide you on the path, on how to protect the vows, many can’t find meaning and disrobe. For those who become ordained Sangha, Rinpoche is offering advice on how to protect the vows.
We invite you to go deeper into the topics presented here, plus many others, by watching Rinpoche’s video and reading the full transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “How Sangha Can Protect Themselves”:
https://youtu.be/zUE3aEUI3h4
- Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
- More information on the monks and nuns of FPMT
- Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings
Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 and find links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/announcements/resources-for-coronavirus-pandemic/advice-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche-for-coronavirus/
Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”
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 explaining the Dharma message he’d written on the stuffed toy, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, July 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:
Lama Zopa Rinpoche beings this teaching explaining that the foundation of lojong (thought transformation) is not only for utilizing suffering on the path to enlightenment for every single sentient being. If you have happiness, you also dedicate it to sentient beings, to bring them to enlightenment. In this way, whatever happiness you experience is for others. Enemy, friend, stranger—everyone is included here.
When a mosquito is buzzing around you, or someone harms you, you can see whether or not you are really practicing Dharma. No matter how many mantras or prayers you recite, how many retreats you have done, at the time when someone is angry, scolding, or disrespecting you—if your mind is kind and compassionate and you generate patience or forgiveness, or if you get angry and want to kill or crush them (in the case of the mosquito)—you can see whether or not you are practicing Dharma by how much you can dedicate for sentient beings.
Obstacles, disturbing situations, undesirable conditions—all persuade you to practice virtue. You need to complete the paramita of patience to achieve enlightenment. Someone who is angry with you is the practical teacher of patience, a practical guru of patience. Only the person you call “enemy” makes you practice the paramita of patience and puts into practice the teachings you have received. The person you call “enemy” gives you enlightenment.
If you don’t want to be reborn in hell, you have to be careful not to get angry. If you get angry because your present situation disturbs the mind or is unpleasant—why not use logic to stop the anger, which is the cause of the hell realm? If you don’t like the suffering of your unpleasant situation, it is not logical to get angry and create the cause of hell, which is even a heavier suffering. Remembering that people make mistakes out of ignorance gives you an opportunity to generate compassion for them. Their mistake is their delusion, not the person. When our minds are overwhelmed by delusion, our lives becomes so crazy. This is a practical method for bringing peace in the world, to see it this way.
Taking others’ suffering on yourself when you are suffering is like transforming “kaka” into gold. If you cherish others, there is no space in your heart for depression, and you can rejoice all the time while doing normal daily activities.
By becoming habituated to non-virtue, we do non-virtuous actions again and again. Even if we know an action is harmful, we can’t stop from doing it. Even if someone has met the Dharma and thinks Dharma is good, they can’t practice because the mind is so habituated with killing, stealing, telling lies, etc. Even if you receive teachings from great lamas who have all the qualities to reveal the path and are so rare to find in the world, you will not have any realizations because of the habituation of negative karma.
If you are reborn as an animal due to negative karma, what can you do? You have to eat or be eaten by others. The tiny amount of blood eaten by a mosquito is nothing compared to what you have done numberless times. When you hear that mosquito buzzing it means it is suffering, it needs something. When you suffer, you complain to others. It is similar to what the mosquito is doing.
Developing the habit of engaging in non-virtue is very scary. We should develop the habit of engaging in virtue such as perfectly following the guru, renunciation, bodhichitta, and right view. We should be habituated in the six paramitas, including patience. By becoming habituated to the practice of patience, we can practice it more and more. Those who don’t practice patience easily become angry and destroy everything. All the virtues you worked so hard for and the merit you created can be destroyed if you don’t practice patience. By thinking of cause and effect, you can stop ignorance. A childish mind is easily made happy and unhappy.
By following attachment, anger, and ignorance you can end up in the lower realms, losing your precious human rebirth.
In all situations, first you discriminate “bad” and “good,” and then from that anger and attachment arise. Everything is projected. You become attached to something that your mind created. So the point is that there is nothing to be attached to.
We invite you to go deeper into the topics presented here, plus many others, by watching Rinpoche’s video and reading the full transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “Attachment Causes You to Lose Your Precious Human Life“:
https://youtu.be/sDEuOiwD1tI
Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 and find links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/announcements/resources-for-coronavirus-pandemic/advice-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche-for-coronavirus/
Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”
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.