Lama Zopa Rinpoche circumambulating the 1,000 buddhas at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, June 2020. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

The Six Perfections: The Practice of the Bodhisattvas is a recent book from Lama Zopa Rinpoche. In it, Rinpoche walks us through this key Mahayana Buddhist teaching. Here’s an excerpt from Rinpoche’s teaching on the perfection of wisdom:

We have this ignorance, this wrong concept, believing in the real I and the real aggregates, which are, in fact, totally empty, which have never existed in the past, from beginningless rebirths. This false concept brings so many problems, causing us to be forever worried about when this I can be happy—this real I that our ignorance believes in and that has never existed. When can it be happy?

All our life we worry about this, through kindergarten, primary school, high school, and college. We go to university and get a degree so this real I can be happy. We get a job and earn a good salary so this real I can be happy. We marry and have children just for this real I. We feel once we have achieved all these goals, then this real I will be so happy!

Our whole life is spent afraid of something happening to this I, to this real I. We totally—100 percent—believe in its reality, and we do everything possible to protect this real I, which is not there. We are filled with apprehension about what will harm us: “This will make me sick. This will kill me. This will hurt me.” We take every possible precaution to prevent this real I that doesn’t exist from being hurt.

Determined to keep fit, we do hours of exercise every day, by jogging or working out on machines. There is a big industry making new types of machines for our supposedly real I to keep fit on. As soon as a machine has been on the market a few months, a new one comes out and our I has to have it. Each machine makes us do it differently—from lying upside down to putting our head between our legs—and we are forced to buy new ones because the experts in advertisements convince us this new one is better. We have injections to prevent diseases before they happen and take all sorts of vitamins every day. This is all done to protect this I that appears real and that we believe in 100 percent.

Because we believe in this supposedly real I, we get angry when somebody cheats us, lies to us, steals from us, blames us, and so forth. We get angry for this real I. We sue that person, bringing a court case against them, spending thousands—even millions!—of dollars all for this real I to harm and defeat its enemy and so be happy. For the real I to be happy we want to put that person into prison. Every day people hurt and even kill others for this real I that does not exist at all, creating all this negative karma for something that is a total hallucination.

Just as a dictator, cheated by this wrong concept of a real I, can start wars and kill millions of people, we are cheated in the same way. Therefore it is vital that we end this tyranny of the real I now. From beginningless rebirths we have been experiencing the sufferings of the hell beings, the hungry ghosts, the animals, the human beings, the gods, the demigods, and the intermediate-state beings. As human beings we have the suffering of rebirth, old age, sickness, and death; the suffering of meeting undesirable objects and not meeting desirable objects. Even if we manage to get what we want, we are still unable to find satisfaction, which is the greatest problem of affluent humans and gods. No matter how many desirable objects we manage to acquire, we can never find satisfaction, but we try and try and try.

This is not the first time we have been like this, with all these sufferings. This has been our experience for countless lifetimes. If we fail to do something now, while we have the opportunity to realize emptiness, we will suffer endlessly in samsara.

Cover of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s book The Six Perfections

All phenomena are empty; they do not exist from their own side, especially I, the body, the aggregates, and the possessions—the objects of our attachment and anger. To remind ourselves of the vital subjects of impermanence, emptiness, and dependent arising, it is very worthwhile to constantly reflect on the meaning of the verse from the Vajra Cutter Sutra, seeing everything as like a star, a mirage, or an illusion.

If we can meditate on this every day, even though we might be far from attaining realizations, having a degree of familiarity will help very much, creating so much peace and happiness in our life. Then we will be able to practice the Dharma more and more, and gain more and more freedom for ourselves until we are able to attain a blissful state of peace, liberation from samsara, and then enlightenment.

Learn more about The Six Perfections: The Practice of the Bodhisattvas, including order information, on Wisdom Publication’s website:
https://wisdomexperience.org/product/the-six-perfections/

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.

Khadro-la and Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi offering Lama Zopa Rinpoche a mandala during a special White Tara long life puja offered to Rinpoche, 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 by continuing to discuss vows. Rinpoche explains that lay people can take the refuge vow alone or with some or all of the lay vows.

Since even some animals can be trained to do things, this should inspire human beings to train their minds to do better and actualize the lamrim.

Life is short and this precious human life should not be wasted and thrown away like used tissue paper. Many things in the world are done for attachment instead of learning Dharma. If you learned Dharma but didn’t practice or do retreat, when your life ends, you will not have used your opportunity to purify your negative karma collected since beginningless rebirths. Then life is wasted due to the distraction of being a slave to attachment, anger, and jealousy. Many times, even if we know a lot, we don’t have realizations so we don’t get a chance to change our minds.

That, by making you habituated and acquainted with always engaging in nonvirtue, again you will depend on nonvirtue, engage in nonvirtue, and be reborn following nonvirtue.

By habituating and acquainting yourself with engaging in non-virtue (negative karma), you depend on non-virtue, and will be reborn in non-virtue. His Holiness used the term, “hygiene of emotions” to describe the act of controlling the mind and practicing loving-kindness, compassion, patience, and satisfaction so one doesn’t ruin their immune system with anger. A rough, violent mind eats at the immune system, and then you have no protection against disease, and it is easy to get sick and die. You have to wake up from the sleep of ignorance and defeat the delusions. Every time you follow attachment you are putting yourself in the prison of samsara. It makes life so difficult again and again. Because of habituation, you create negative karma even though you know it is not good.

You can take animals around holy objects. Even though you think you are helping the animal, the animal is also helping you create the cause for enlightenment. Going around holy objects containing the four Dharmakaya Relic Mantras purifies so much negative karma, you don’t have to worry about death.

In a pure land, there is no true suffering because the nature of a pure land is not caused by karma and delusions. Pure lands happen because of the power of prayer and the roots of merit. Living beings in a pure land do not experience true sufferings. All the places in a pure land are free of true suffering. It is important to know how to be reborn in a pure land. Even ordinary beings can easily create the cause to be reborn in Amitabha Pure Land.

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 “By Habituating Yourself with Negative Karma, You Do It Again and Again”:
https://youtu.be/4jmNwix0Sc0

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching 
• 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 with Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi, Ven. Tenpa Chodon, and Ven. Sangpo Sherpa on top of Kopan Hill, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, June 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

During the coronavirus pandemic, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has been staying at Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Now you can see more than seventy photos of day to day life at Kopan under lockdown in a new photo album spanning March through June 2020. In addition to photos of Rinpoche, we’ve collected photos of Kopan monks and staff as they do some of their daily activities.

We’ve also added albums from Rinpoche’s visits to India between December 2019 and February 2020, and Rinpoche’s short visit to Kopan Monastery in January 2020 for a long life puja. 

See more photos of Lama Zopa Rinpoche:
https://fpmt.org/teachers/zopa/gallery/

The Himalayan Mountains seen from Kopan Monastery. With the lockdown, pollution in the Kathmandu Valley decreased enough to no longer obscure views of the mountains, Nepal, May 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

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 the long life puja offered at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in January 2020. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

A long life puja was offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery in Nepal in January 2020. A long-time student composed the following prayer and praise for the puja. Of it, Lama Zopa Rinpoche said, “The long life prayer is telling the false and the truth in our life. … This is because this student understands Dharma and is a good writer.”

Long-life Prayer for Kyabje Thubten Zopa Rinpoche

May the incomparable Spiritual Friend,
Who is more precious than a wish-granting jewel,
Have a long, fruitful life and continue guiding us
Along the path he himself has traveled.

Although you have shown us well that the pleasures of samsara
Are nothing more than suffering in disguise,
Still we remain addicted to these transient pleasures,
Grasping onto them as if they were real—

O Guru, please be patient with short-sighted beings like myself
And continue to reveal the truth behind samsara’s lies
Until all of us come to realize that there is no essence at all
In any of the objects of worldly desire.

Although you have shown us well that, despite appearances,
Nothing exists solely from its own side,
And that the hallucination that it does
Is what traps us perpetually in unsatisfactory existence—

O Guru, please be patient with thick-headed beings like myself
Who return empty-handed from the Jewel Island of Dharma,
Having repeatedly heard the words of the teachings,
But have failed to realize their essential meaning.

Although you have shown us well that cherishing ourselves
More than others is the falsest of friends—
It promises us the fulfilment of our innermost desires,
Yet condemns us to perpetual frustration instead—

O Guru, please be patient with slaves of selfishness like myself
Who fail to learn from your perfect example
That service to others is the only source of true happiness,
The only cure for the miseries of the world.

O Guru, who never tires revealing the path to Full Awakening
To those who, like myself, are addicted to sleep,
Please be patient with all our shortcomings
And remain with us until all beings are free.

COLOPHON: Composed in California by the lay devotee Jhampa Togme on January 22, 2020, to coincide with a long-life puja offered to Kyabje Thubten Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, by a gathering of his worldwide circle of fortunate disciples. May all our sincere wishes to be continuously cared for by him be fulfilled!

Find more prayers and praises for Lama Zopa Rinpoche on the new page “Long Life Prayers for Lama Zopa Rinpoche Composed by Others”:
https://fpmt.org/teachers/zopa/prayers-by-others/

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 and Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi with the staff of Kopan Monastery, Nepal, 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 explaining that each Sangha person has been a hero for as long as they have been ordained because they conquer the delusions. Sangha must recognize that they are incredibly brave. Since beginningless rebirths we have been slaves to the delusions. Now as Sangha, you face the delusions. By meeting the Dharma you have found a way to defeat the delusions, which have caused suffering since beginningless rebirths.

You think you are alone in the world, but you never are. There are numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas with you, and they are happy with you. Buddhas and bodhisattvas have a hundred thousand times more compassion for you than you have for yourself.

If you practice good karma, abandon negative karma, and live in the vows this will bring all the success and happiness in life. You have to work at this. You have to abandon the cause of suffering and create the cause of happiness. Dharma practice is to defeat delusions—this is important to and remember.

Attachment to others’ bodies is due to habituation from beginningless samsara. The attachment did not come from the side of the object, but from your mind. Depending on how someone treats you, your mind changes in regard to them. You discriminate based on whether they love and praise you or criticize and not like you. All of that is from your side. Beautiful and ugly come from your mind, not from the side of the object.

Only the person who harms you and gets angry at you gives you the chance to practice the perfection of patience. By practicing patience you can overcome anger and not only achieve liberation from samsara, but you are able to achieve enlightenment with infinite qualities of the holy body, speech, and mind so you can do perfect work for sentient beings. So you can see that this person who is your “enemy” is so unbelievably kind and incredibly precious.

You can go crazy with attachment to people’s bodies because you never think about what is inside: the veins, bones, and flesh. Even outer skin is nothing to be attached to if you look closely at it. In reality, the human body is like a meat shop in India or Nepal, where the bodies are hanging with everything that is on the inside hanging out.

From this, you give up a higher rebirth, nirvana, and enlightenment, and bringing numberless sentient beings to enlightenment for a few seconds of pleasure. You yourself created attachment, therefore freedom from it is in your hands. It is also important to meditate on the suffering of change to overcome attachment. What you call pleasure is labeled by the mind. The negative imprint left on the mental continuum by ignorance projects real pleasure and then real pleasure appears. Then, the wrong concept believing it to be real pleasure causes you to be continuously reborn in samsara. Truly existent pleasure is a total hallucination, like taking drugs and seeing things that aren’t there. Attachment cheats you like honey on the blade of a sword.

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 to Pleasure Cheats You“:
https://youtu.be/nQy7JBj1GRM

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• 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 with the Kopan board members at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, 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:

Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching reminding us that even if we do get the virus, we can utilize it and even enjoy it. If we rely only on the self-cherishing thought, we can’t enjoy it because we see only suffering, the suffering of pain. If we enjoy it, we are experiencing it with bodhichitta—conventional and absolute. With that we can experience the sickness of all sentient beings. We take it on and experience it for them, allowing them to be free from samsara by taking on all of their obscurations and sicknesses so they can achieve enlightenment. This is also a quick way to purify our negative karma, collected since beginningless rebirths, and achieve enlightenment for ourselves.

Even when we are happy, comfortable, and enjoying life, if we remember bodhichitta, then that time can be used as the cause for happiness for sentient beings and doesn’t get wasted. If not done with bodhichitta, our comfort and happiness become wasted. When we are suffering or enjoying life, including when we die, we can remember bodhichitta and utilize whatever we are experiencing on the path to enlightenment for sentient beings. In the West, when death happens suddenly there is so much fear—to separate from family, wealth, one’s body. Even when we are not actively dying from a virus or other factors, there are so many conditions for death that have nothing to do with sickness.

There are roughly 350 ordained Sangha in the FPMT organization. The value of Sangha is more than the whole sky filled with wish-granting jewels. Being Sangha and living in morality is the most important way to achieve liberation from samsara and enlightenment, and benefit sentient beings by freeing them from the lower realms and bringing them to enlightenment. Therefore, if you are a monk or nun you should rejoice all the time! When you think about the preciousness of human rebirth, because you have taken vows, you should rejoice as this is the foundation to achieve everything—to liberate numberless sentient beings from samsara and bring them to enlightenment. You are the real hero.

What brings peace to the world is subduing the mind, subduing delusion. What brings chaos to the world and so many problems is the unsubdued and disturbed mind, delusion. Sangha has the main special job of subduing, overcoming, defeating the enemy: delusion. If you are Sangha you must recognize that you are the real hero doing the most difficult thing to do. Lay people living in vows are heroes as well, but because Sangha have more vows they are the real heroes over the delusions.

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 “Remember Bodhichitta When You Are Dying and the Sangha Are the Real Heroes”:
https://youtu.be/COUPMAUoJP0

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• 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 doing the consecration of the Nalanda statues at Chenrezig Institute in Australia via Zoom, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, July 2020. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

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 while we are in samsara we can never be “well” because our body and mind are under the control of delusion and karma. Replying to “How are you?” with “I’m well” is a response from the hallucinated mind.

Every second you need to feel how precious this human rebirth is so you don’t waste your life in non-virtue. Any activity done can be part of your daily practice—even cleaning. You can think you are purifying your defilements and disturbing thought obscurations, which interfere with achieving enlightenment. You can “clean” your own obscurations and the obscurations of all sentient beings, transforming a necessary mundane activity into the path to enlightenment.

Rinpoche shares the story of how he came to teach the first November Course at Kopan Monastery and how many FPMT centers were started by students who attended courses at Kopan.

Discussing the benefits of ordination, Rinpoche explains that someone who takes the ordination of renunciation (of the householder life) creates more merit in one day than a lay person who creates merit for one hundred years.

If one degenerates the vows, there are so many ways to purify negative karma. In addition to Vajrasattva practice, Thirty-five Confession Buddha practice, one can also do Dorje Khadro fire puja, make light offerings, circumambulate holy objects, read the Vajra Cutter Sutra, and those who have done mahanuttara tantra retreat can do self-initiation to purify pratimoksha, bodhisattva, and tantric vows. Of course, what is most important is doing that which makes the guru most happy. This is the greatest purification and the quickest way to achieve enlightenment. If one is living in ordination, doing sojong (reviving-purifying rite) purifies the downfalls of degenerating or breaking vows.

In order to receive a downfall, one must have four things: a lack of conscientiousness, a lack of respect, not knowing the vows, and many delusions. Rinpoche explains that there are many benefits to protecting morality through taking and keeping vows and provides commentary on each: all your collections of goodness will increase; you will be praised by buddhas, the devas of the white side, and your friends; you will be renowned; sentient beings will listen to your teachings; the realizations of the paths and bhumis increase; you will die happy; day and night you will be happy; you will be protected by the devas; you won’t feel ashamed in front of holy beings; human beings and non-human beings cannot harm you; you receive all enjoyments without effort; and you become like Dzambhala for other sentient beings.

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 Taking the Ordination of Renunciation and Protecting Morality“:
https://youtu.be/syMyXdkCIjs

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• 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.

Special White Tara long life puja offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery, July 4, 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

On July 4, under the direction and guidance of Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drönme (Khadro-la), a special White Tara long life puja was offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, with Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi and about one  hundred senior monks from the monastery and twenty nuns from the nunnery. Attendance at this puja was limited due to the current lockdown situation in Nepal.

For three days prior to the actual puja, Khadro-la, with the help of six geshes, Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi, and about one hundred senior geshes and monks from Kopan Monastery, did special preparatory practices in the Kopan gompa for many hours. This was part of the White Tara long life puja, which comes from His Holiness Zong Rinpoche and is a very powerful puja from the lower tantra.

Khadro-la offering the special White Tara long life puja to Lama Zopa Rinpoche, July 4, 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

FPMT, through the Long Life Puja Fund, and Kopan Monastery sponsored this entire puja. All the extensive preparations were kindly taken care of by Kopan.

This particular long life puja was offered because Ven. Roger Kunsang had checked with Khadro-la about Rinpoche’s health and long life for the upcoming year, which is customary for him to do. Khadro-la indicated there were some obstacles to Rinpoche’s health and long life and this special long life puja was needed. In addition, Khadro-la advised on the need for three to four Most Secret Hayagriva tsog kong pujas to be offered at Kopan Monastery before the end of this year. One of these pujas has already been completed—this is a very extensive puja that takes most of an entire day, about fourteen hours, to offer.

Khadro-la leading preparations the day prior to the long life puja. 3.5 days of preparations were needed. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Large effigy of Lama Zopa Rinpoche made for the special long life puja by Kopan Lama Gyupas. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Khadro-la advised that the preparation for this long life puja needed to last at least three days to make it most powerful. During the preparation there was a large effigy of Rinpoche created by the Kopan Lama Gyupas with hand-made robes, hat, and glasses. The effigy was then taken out during the puja.

On the morning of the puja, further preparation occurred until Rinpoche was invited down to the gompa by Khadro-la and Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi.

Offering of tsog during the White Tara long life puja. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Thousand-Arm Chenrezig thangka offered by Ven. Roger Kunsang to Lama Zopa Rinpoche during the White Tara long life puja.

Thousand-Arm Chenrezig thangka offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche during the White Tara long life puja. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

One very special offering that was made to Rinpoche during the puja was a new Thousand-Arm Chenrezig thangka to replace the one that Rinpoche carries with him everywhere. Ven. Roger sponsored the thangka on behalf of the organization and arranged for it to be painted about a year ago. Throughout the process Ven. Roger checked the art, quality and type of brocade, and other details with Rinpoche. Rinpoche was very pleased with the art.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Khadro-la, Kopan Monastery, July 1, 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Following the long life puja Rinpoche and Khadro-la concluded that it was important to also offer Lama Chopa with tsog, starting with Calling the Guru from Afar. This lasted into the early evening.

Every day during the preparation period guided by Khadro-la, Rinpoche and Khadro-la had lunch together, discussing many important subjects. One item discussed at length was the four to six large fire pujas that Khadro-la had advised to do at specific holy places around Kathmandu Valley. These fire pujas will be arranged by different Nyingma, Kagyu, and Gelug monasteries, including Kopan Monastery. The fire pujas have to be done in different directions and happen simultaneously and are done to help subdue the effects of COVID-19 experienced in Nepal and around the world. These pujas will happen once permission is granted at the various locations; the delays have been due to the situation of lockdown.

Each morning during the preparations, Khadro-la visited Rinpoche for thirty minutes, discussing different signs or indications that she received the night before.

The long life puja itself was very powerful and successful. Rinpoche was very happy and also Khadro-la seemed very pleased.

Following the long life puja Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi, Khadro-la and Rinpoche walked in the gardens of Kopan Monastery. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

On behalf of the entire FPMT organization, we offer the most heartfelt thanks to Khadro-la for taking care of Rinpoche in this way, guiding and offering the entire long life puja so carefully with so much preparation, as well as advising what other pujas are needed. We also want to take this opportunity to thank Ven. Roger Kunsang for offering tireless service to Rinpoche for thirty-five years and for making sure all of these important things happen. 

Tremendous thanks to all the centers and students who support the Long Life Puja Fund—please rejoice that your offerings helped sponsor this puja.

Heartfelt thanks are also offered to Kopan Monastery for helping to offer this puja so successfully with so many prayers and preparations. 

The Long Life Puja Fund always contributes to long life pujas offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche. You can also learn about the many Charitable Projects of FPMT and discover the many ways the various funds and projects are benefiting others.

You can 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 at 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:

Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching explaining that thought transformation (lojong) is utilizing unfavorable or undesirable situations on the path to enlightenment. This isn’t done for temporary happiness of a few minutes, then you go back to the problems of life, or even for liberation from samsara. You utilize problems for peerless happiness, full enlightenment—the total cessation of obscurations and the completion of realizations so you can lead all sentient being there.

Since beginningless rebirths we have lived life controlled by our enemies: desire, anger, ignorance, self-cherishing thoughts, and the root of samsara—the ignorance holding the “I as real.

We have experienced the six-realm sufferings since beginningless rebirths. Whatever we see—insects, animals, people suffering—we have gone through that. We don’t remember. But just like we don’t remember what we ate or said yesterday, we don’t remember our previous rebirths due to ignorance, pollution. No level of education or amount of money can save you from the lower realms if you don’t purify your negative karma before you die. Only good karma from practicing loving-kindness, compassion, and bodhichitta can bring you enjoyments in your next life.

Even without devotion, you collect numberless merits just by seeing a holy object. By making offerings to a holy object, you won’t be reborn in the lower realms for 840,000,000 eons. However, people who have the opportunity to make offerings are often lazy and distracted by life, which is like throwing a diamond into the garbage.

Whatever vow you take with bodhichitta benefits every single sentient being, no one is left out. This is very beautiful—no matter the problems that beings experience—wars, famine, diseases, etc.,—every vow you keep is for everyone. The merit of keeping one vow for one day is far greater than making extensive offerings to billions of buddhas. Your human rebirth is so precious because you can use it to keep even one vow for one day.

The basis of all qualities is keeping pure morality. You must cherish and protect this. This is the root of Buddha’s teaching. Starting with the five precepts through the vinaya, keeping vows protects and preserves your morality. Without a bhikshu holding vinaya there is no teaching of the Buddha. This is why monasteries and nunneries are so important and why we have so many Buddhist countries. If you don’t control your mind by living in vows, your mind brings you the worst, heaviest suffering. However, by remembering your morality and keeping vows, you have no fear and all the virtue comes into your hands.

Rinpoche concludes by continuing to offer the oral transmission of Sutra of Great Liberation.

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 “This Perfect Human Body Is So Precious Because You Can Use It to Keep Even One Vow”: 
https://youtu.be/gdJHUxaTW9o

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• 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.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama meeting with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Bodhgaya, India, January 2020. Photo courtesy of the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

On July 6, His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s 85th birthday is being celebrated around the world by Tibetans and an international community of students of Tibetan Buddhism. FPMT International Offices joins in the rejoicing and offers prayers for His Holiness’s excellent health and very long life!

Supporting the wishes of His Holiness is a primary aim of the FPMT organization as described in Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Vast Vision for FPMT. Rinpoche has explained that “[I would like] for FPMT to offer service to His Holiness the Dalai Lama as much as possible and to be able to fulfill His Holiness’ wishes. This is the highest priority for the organization.” Rinpoche has further said, “This is the quickest and most vast way of benefiting sentient beings.”

Since its inception, FPMT has turned to His Holiness the Dalai Lama for inspiration and guidance and attempted to promote and actualize His Holiness’ vision as much as possible and to create the cause for His Holiness’ long life. This includes offering or being part of offering a long life puja to His Holiness when possible. Rinpoche has also given extensive advice on prayers and practices to be done on His Holiness’s birthday and recently arranged 1000 Buddhas to be offered to His Holiness the Dalai Lama on behalf of FPMT organization.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, India, January 2017. Photo by Neal Patrick.

As the spiritual guide for six million Tibetans, as Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s guru, as a recipient of the Noble Peace Prize, and as a promoter of each individual’s universal responsibility toward humankind and the environment, His Holiness serves as a living symbol for world peace. 

At 85 years, His Holiness continues to be relevant and tuned into the needs of people around the world, engaging in discussions with young people and participating in dialogues on the environment, science and the mind, and interfaith understanding. During the coronavirus pandemic, His Holiness is offering live webcasts of teachings to continue to connect with students and bring the teachings of the Buddha to the world. 

His Holiness also participates in novel projects, such his new album Inner World, a collection of mantras and teachings set to music that is being releases on his birthday this year. (The tracks “Compassion” and “One of My Favorite Prayers” are available as videos.) The album was created by long-time students of His Holiness wishing to bring benefit to people. Proceeds from the album will be donated to projects carrying out His Holiness’s vision. 

For more on His Holiness the Dalai Lama and his beneficial activities, please visit DalaiLama.com.

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, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, April 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s newest book, How to Face Death without Fear: A Handbook by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, was recently released by Wisdom Publications. The 400-plus page paperback book has been compiled from years of Rinpoche’s teachings and carefully edited by Ven. Robina Courtin, an FPMT registered teacher.

Students can use How to Face Death without Fear: A Handbook to help loved ones prepare for the end of their life with courage, acceptance, and a mind free of fear. Rinpoche explains how to think about death and reincarnation, how we go from one life to the next, what to do before death, in the moment itself, after the breath has stopped, and after the mind has left the body. Much of the advice included in the book can be adapted to benefit non-Buddhists and animals too.

How to Face Death Without Fear: A Handbook by Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

As Rinpoche says in the book’s introduction, “When suddenly one day one of your loved ones dies and you don’t know what to do to help, you’ll feel so confused, so lost. Recently a Buddhist student of mine told me that this is what happened for her when her father died unexpectedly. That made me think that knowing how to help others at the time of death is such important education to have.”

Rinpoche provides the mantras, prayers, and meditations appropriate for each stage of the dying process. This new edition of Rinpoche’s 2017 book How to Enjoy Death makes it easy for the reader to find the right practice at the right time.

Ven. Robina Courtin explained in the preface, “Because for most of us death is a difficult thing to come to terms with—our loved one’s or our own—working out which practices to do can be daunting. Therefore Rinpoche’s actual advice, the things to do—contained in parts 3, 4, and 5, the heart of the book—have been identified as eighty-seven distinct practices, numbered and structured chronologically to help us know what to do when.”

How to Face Death without Fear: A Handbook is an invaluable resource not only for Tibetan Buddhist caregivers, hospice workers, and chaplains but for all of us.

Liberation Box, Protection Tools for a Fortunate Rebirth

The FPMT Foundation Store continues to offer the Liberation Box, which is a collection of tools to be used at the time of death assembled according to Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice. It contains powerful methods for ensuring a fortunate rebirth for those who have died or are in the process of dying, including a stupa, hardcopy booklets and cards, MP3 audio files, a phowa pill, and a blessed cord. The Liberation Box can compliment the practices in Rinpoche’s book How to Face Death without Fear. The Foundation Store also offers a French and Spanish hardcopy version of the Liberation Box, as well as a digital version. 

For more information, visit Wisdom Publications’ page for How to Face Death without Fear: A Handbook by Lama Zopa Rinpoche:
https://wisdomexperience.org/product/how-to-face-death-without-fear/

You can also find links to many resources for time of death on FPMT.org/death.

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 outside the Kopan canteen, where he had tea with some monks, 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:

This video begins with long-time FPMT student Massimo Corona, who arrived at Kopan Monastery in 1971, explaining how he met Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Massimo, who also served FPMT Inc. as its executive director and a member of the board of directors, helped bring FPMT to his home country, Italy. With the financial assistance of his family, Massimo was able to purchase and offer an old stone castle in Tuscany in 1977. This became the home of Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa and firmly established FPMT in continental Europe. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching explaining that people can misuse their precious human rebirth to create negative karma, which is like using gold to buy “kaka.” By recognizing how precious the human rebirth is, we then don’t waste it on meaningless things. Even without vows, avoiding killing, stealing, lying, etc., will help keep you from going to prison. We need to abstain from creating negative karma and have self-discipline. Even keeping one of the five lay precepts brings so much happiness to others by protecting them from being harmed by you. Taking vows is also practical. Without them, you not only waste your life, you use it to create non-virtue.

Due to ignorance, we live life with obscurations in the mind, like being in a fog without any sun, moon, or stars. The truth doesn’t exist in that kind of mind, and we follow a hallucinated life, thinking, “This is real. This is truth.” In the West, people think it isn’t possible to live a life without attachment and self-cherishing thoughts or activities. However, in the East, numberless beings have become enlightened, and there are many holy places. Buddhism has now spread to the West, but there is a shallow understanding of the teachings. People need to be willing to bear hardships, like Milarepa did, in order to practice Dharma. We need to bear hardships to overcome delusions and have realizations. Buddhism is not easy. To go deep into Buddhism, we have to dedicate our life to it and make sacrifices. The first Dharma practice is to renounce worldly concern.

Unless we have omniscience or very high clairvoyance, we aren’t able to see others’ minds and we can’t tell who is enlightened. When holy beings appear to be doing normal activities or appear ordinary, our obscured mind cannot see that they are enlightened. It is possible that someone who appears very ordinary is enlightened, and we can make many mistakes in relation to them.

When you actualize bodhichitta, you don’t do any single activity with the motivation of cherishing yourself, everything is for every other being including the numberless beings in numberless universes.

By realizing impermanence and death, you can overcome laziness and everything you do becomes holy Dharma. With the realization of impermanence, Dharma becomes easy. And then doing non-Dharma worldly things becomes difficult because you are aware of the shortcomings.

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 “When You Realize Impermanence, Dharma Becomes Easy”:
https://youtu.be/WqkCy443X7I

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.
• Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings

Find more advice and video teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche from Kopan Monastery and also links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, 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.