Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice

Lama Zopa Rinpoche on the path to the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion in Bendigo, Australia, where Rinpoche is leading a six-week retreat, April 2018. Photo via Lama Zopa Rinpoche on Instagram.

“Somebody who doesn’t know what to do—many [people] have practices in the life, commitments and many practices, but somebody who has no clear idea of what to practice; if they want to do some practice in the daily life but don’t know what to practice, what to do, my suggestion is that, something very simple,” Rinpoche advices in a teaching published in the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive September 2017 E-Letter.

“So first thing in the morning rejoice that so far we didn’t die, that we didn’t die, rejoice. Then after that, by remembering all those people who died, family members, then if there are gurus who passed away, remember those and family members who have passed away, friends who have died. Anyway, rejoice that we did not die so far. And again today we are able to be a human being, and not only that but we have a perfect human rebirth, so that we can achieve the three great meanings, more precious than the whole sky filled with the wish-granting jewels. All those are nothing compared with our precious human body, with which we can achieve three great meanings in every second, whatever we wish for. Even in every minute, we can achieve all that, because we can create the cause.

“So rejoice, then think death can happen any minute. Death can happen any [time], death can happen even today, any minute it can happen, any moment death can happen. Either make complete determination, thinking that we are going to die today, that’s the best, however, think it can happen any day, even today, in any minute it can happen. Then make strong determination of what we should do with our life. Then on the basis of correctly devoting to the virtuous friend, that’s how to practice Dharma. The most profitable way to practice Dharma is correctly devoting to the virtuous friend. That’s how to make our practice most successful.” …

Read the entire teaching “You Have Time to Get It Done” from teachings given at Tara Institute in Melbourne, Australia, in March 2000 and published in Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive September 2017 E-Letter:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/e-letter-no-171-september-2017

Watch Rinpoche teach from Bendigo, Australia, during the retreat at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, March 30-May 12. For details on the livestream:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/

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

Geshe Lobsang Doga greeting Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the airport in Melbourne, Australia, March 2018. Photo courtesy of Tara Institute’s Facebook page.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche arrived in Australia, where he’ll be teaching through early June. Rinpoche was greeted at the airport in Melbourne by Geshe Lobsang Doga, resident geshe of Tara Institute, and Tara Institute students.

Then Rinpoche was driven two hours to Bendigo, Australia, home of the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion to lead a six-week retreat. Rinpoche is teaching on Shantideva’s A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life (Bodhicaryavatara), with the optional tantric empowerments of Chakrasamvara and Rinjung Gyatsa. 

Rinpoche’s teachings during the retreat are being livestreamed. For details, see:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/

The retreat runs March 30-May 12. Many people have been working to get the Great Stupa ready for the retreat. A very large thangka of the Twenty-One Taras is hanging in the gompa inside the Great Stupa. This retreat is the third in a series of retreats given by Rinpoche in this location.

“This retreat came about because the late Khunu Lama Rinpoche requested Lama Zopa Rinpoche to translate Shantideva’s Bodhicaryavatara (A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life),” explained Ven. Roger Kunsang, Rinpoche’s assistant and CEO of FPMT. 

“Khunu Lama Rinpoche made this request after he gave Lama Zopa Rinpoche the commentary on the Bodhicaryavatara at Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s request. So Lama Zopa Rinpoche is teaching the Bodhicaryavatara at the same time as translating it. (A small team led by Ven. Ailsa Cameron is carefully noting Rinpoche’s translation as he teaches.)

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, Bendigo, Australia, October 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“Then Lama Zopa Rinpoche was requested by Ven. Gyatso (director of Thubten Shedrup Ling Monastery in Bendigo) to give the Rinjung Gyatsa set of initiations, which is quite rare. Rinpoche commented that it is common in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition to organize initiations into ‘sets.’ Also that different deities have different purposes and benefits, and that once you receive the permission to practice that deity, you have more potential to help others and are also helping to preserve Buddhism.

“Lama Zopa Rinpoche has combined both into one retreat. The first installment of this retreat was in April 2011 and the second installment took place in September-October 2014.”

Read about the April 2011 retreat in the Mandala story “The Retreat of a Life Time.” The September-October 2014 retreat was covered in many FPMT news blog posts, which include links to video from Rinpoche’s teachings there. You can also access video recordings of Rinpoche’s teachings from the Australia 2014 retreat on FPMT’s Rinpoche Available Now page (fpmt.org/rinpochenow/).

Watch Rinpoche teach from Bendigo, Australia, during the retreat at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, March 30-May 12. For details on the livestream:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation, and community service.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, welcomed by local people, going to bless the stupa built by Losang Namgyal Rinpoche, who is leading Rinpoche, in Pakarbas, Nepal, February 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

On February 25, Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Losang Namgyal Rinpoche, the head lama of Nepal’s Tamang people, consecrated a newly built 45-foot (14-meter) tall Enlightenment Stupa in Pakarbas, Ramechhap, Nepal. The stupa was built by Losang Namgyal Rinpoche and the local people and sponsored by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Monks from Kopan’s lower tantric college also participated in the stupa consecration. Rinpoche was enthusiastically welcomed to the event, which was well attended by high officials and villagers.

45-foot-tall Enlightenment Stupa built by Losang Namgyal Rinpoche and local community, Pakarbas, Ramechhap, Nepal, February 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Rinpoche then traveled to Pokhara, Nepal’s second largest city and the site of many lakes. Rinpoche spent a few of the 15 Days of Miracles in Pokhara, where he devoted a lot of time to blessing food and water for the fish and living beings in the lakes. Rinpoche went out on a boat on Begnas Lake, Pokhara’s second largest lake, and offered the food and water with prayers and mantras.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche blessing the fish and all beings in the lake with mantras and prayers, Pokhara, Nepal, March 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Wherever Rinpoche goes, he makes an effort to prioritize this kind of charity.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche blessing the fish in the lake, Pokhara, Nepal, March 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Rinpoche also visited the Jampaling Tibetan settlement near Pokhara, where Rinpoche saw a Maitreya statue that speaks and other holy objects, many brought from Tibet. 

Rinpoche making prayers in front of the Maitreya statue that speaks at Jampaling Tibetan settlement, Nepal, February 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Rinpoche next traveled by helicopter to a village in Taplejung district in mountainous northeastern Nepal. Rinpoche gave a White Tara initiation attended by approximately 5,000 people, some traveling for two days on foot to get there.

Local Sangha and villagers line up to welcome Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Solu Khumbu, Nepal, March 2018. Photo by Pema Tengya via Facebook.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche during White Tara initiation, Solu Khumbu, Nepal, March 2018. Photo by Pema Tengya via Facebook.

This event and the stupa consecration were both quite special as Rinpoche does not often lead ceremonies for local people in the rural areas of Nepal.

After returning briefly to Kopan, Rinpoche traveled to Tushita Mahayana Meditation Centre in Delhi, India.

See the new photo album from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s February-March visit to Nepal:
https://fpmt.org/teachers/zopa/gallery/nepal-february-march-2018/

Watch Rinpoche teach from Bendigo, Australia, during the retreat at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, March 30-May 12. For details on the livestream:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching in Moscow, Russia, May 2017. Photo by Renat Alyaudinov.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche composed a long and detailed letter for FPMT Annual Review 2017: Serving the Teachings of the Buddha. We’re happy to share part of Rinpoche’s four-page letter, which was written in January 2018 in Tso Pema, Himachal Pradesh, India: 

My most precious, most kind, most dear, wish-fulfilling directors, students, benefactors, and friends,

Here, I am dropping some news from the sky—for some it will be new, for some it will be old teachings.

Firstly, from the bottom of my heart and bones, thank you numberless times for all your service; dedication; practice of holy Dharma with your body, speech, and mind; and for your devotion and good heart.

The ultimate aim is to benefit sentient beings, whose minds are obscured and suffering, and for them to achieve happiness in this life and happiness in future lives, then the ultimate happiness of liberation from samsara and of buddhahood, the total cessation of obscurations and completion of realizations. Therefore, sentient beings receive all the peace and happiness up to enlightenment by serving the teachings of Buddha, so that the teachings exist continually and develop, and also by serving the Sangha, who preserve and spread Dharma in this world.

So here, mostly we have been able to help by building monasteries and nunneries, making offerings to holy objects, helping the Sangha with Dharma education and survival, and offering help to the elderly and to schools.

As Buddha said:

Any sentient being who, during the period of my teachings,
Makes charity well (even if the material is the size of a hair),
For 80,000 eons there will be great results of great enjoyment:
No pain, no disease, and enjoyment of happiness.
Like that, one will be enriched with the desirable things.
At the end, you can actually achieve the result: the peerless cessation and completion (enlightenment).

After hearing that there is this great result, who wouldn’t want to collect merit? This is just to get some idea of the benefits.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche blessing the fish in the lake and doing prayers, Tso Pema, India, January 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Now, in regard to making offerings to the guru, and not just me Guru Mickey Mouse, but to anyone from whom you have received Dharma contact with the recognition of guru-disciple: Just by offering scented smell to the pores of the guru’s holy body you collect so much unbelievable merit, more than from having made extensive offerings to numberless Buddha, Dharma, Sangha and numberless statues, stupas, and scriptures. 

As I normally mention, compared to other people, your own parents are a more powerful object with which to collect merit. That’s why you can experience the result in this life of whatever service you did for your parents in this life. The good karma is so powerful that you can start to experience the result—happiness and success—in this life. The negative karma that is created in relation to your parents, such as by complaining to or harming your parents, even a very little, is very, very heavy, and you start to experience the suffering in this life. You experience the suffering result not only in this life but in future lives as well for 500 lifetimes.

After that, ordained Sangha are a more powerful object than your parents. Then more powerful than ordained Sangha are arhats. Then more powerful than numberless arhats is one bodhisattva, one who has generated bodhichitta. It is said by Buddha in the sutras and also quoted in the lamrim commentaries that if you don’t have bodhichitta and you glare at a bodhisattva just one time, the negative karma is so heavy that it is like having taken out the eyeballs of all the sentient beings of the three realms (desire realm, form realm, and formless realm). If you look at one bodhisattva with a devoted, calm mind, with respectful eyes, then you collect merit like having made charity of your eyes to all the sentient beings in the three realms. (This is in regard to how one bodhisattva is extremely powerful, more powerful than numberless arhats, whether you harm the bodhisattva or make offerings or offer service.)

After that, even more powerful is one buddha. One buddha is more powerful than numberless bodhisattvas. From even a small act of disrespect towards one buddha, the negative karma is unbelievably heavy; and from just a little service, a little respect toward one buddha, the result is unbelievable happiness. This is because one buddha is more powerful than numberless bodhisattvas.

Tso Pema, Himachal Pradesh, India, January 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Now to the guru—not just anyone known in the world as a guru but the guru with whom you have a Dharma connection, a guru-disciple connection—offering just a little service, as I mentioned before, has the greatest benefit, more benefit than from making offerings to numberless Buddha, Dharma, Sangha and numberless statues, stupas, and scriptures. This is not just offering the guru service, but also fulfilling the guru’s wishes and advice.

It is mentioned in the lamrim teachings that each time one makes an offering to the guru, even a small nut or a glass of water, one becomes closer to enlightenment. So, you have to figure out the value of the rest, such as offering service and the offerings that you make, from this. Then, there is no hesitation to say that you do the greatest purification and collect the greatest merit by fulfilling the guru’s wishes and following his advice and teachings. For example, every day, every hour, every minute, every second that you keep your vows or recite mantras or offer any service, you become closer and closer to enlightenment. …

Read the entire letter from Lama Zopa Rinpoche in FPMT Annual Review 2017:
https://issuu.com/fpmtinc/docs/fpmt_ar_2017_issuu/2

We invite you to read FPMT Annual Review 2017: Serving the Teachings of the Buddha, now available online in eZine and PDF formats:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/annual-review/

See photo highlights from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s 2017:
https://fpmt.org/teachers/zopa/gallery/lama-zopa-rinpoches-2017/

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.

Young monk chanting Migtsema while making a light offering on Lama Tsongkhapa Day, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, December 2016. Photo by Laura Miller.

Every year the Sangha at Kopan Monastery celebrate Lama Tsongkhapa Day with incredible light offerings, including hundreds of thousands of strung lights encircling the buildings at the monastery and nunnery, and a special evening offering of candles.

The holy day commemorates the anniversary of the parinirvana of Lama Je Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), the founder of the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche was at Kopan during this past year’s Lama Tsongkhapa Day, which was on December 12, 2017. 

A new, short video shares scenes and sounds from 2017’s joyous celebration. Watch Rinpoche and Kopan’s monks make light offerings, chant Migtsema (a short prayer to Lama Tsongkhapa), and circumambulate Kopan’s main gompa and large stupas. 

Watch Kopan Monastery Lama Tsongkhapa Day on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/MQ1XOKnQX1s

Find more short videos of Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching and visiting FMPT centers, projects, and services around the world:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/videos-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/

Learn more about Kopan Monastery:
http://kopanmonastery.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 and Khadro-la (Rangjung Neljorma Khandro Namsel Drönme) making prayers for and blessing Kamal, who worked for many years at Kopan Monastery in the dining room and kitchen and who died in early March, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, February 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered advice to a student who was injured by a fall and who had not healed and was worried. Here’s what Rinpoche told the student:

Think that, “I am the most fortunate one, that I have this sickness. I am the most fortunate one. Why? Because by having this sickness now I can practice pure Dharma. I have been given the opportunity to practice pure Dharma. I can experience all sentient beings’ pain, disease, spirit harm, negative karma, and obscurations, and they can all achieve the dharmakaya.”

Also you can meditate that you receive all sentient beings’ pain, disease, negative karma and obscurations. Think that you have received these in your heart in the form of darkness, like smoke or like black fog, and they destroy the self-cherishing thought, where all the sufferings come from. They are brought into the heart and received there, like throwing an atomic bomb on the enemy, so self-cherishing thoughts are totally smashed.

Here you give this to the self-cherishing thought that has caused you beginningless oceans of samsara in the six realms up to the present, as well as the present and endless future oceans of suffering—not only your own suffering but it has also given suffering to numberless sentient beings from beginningless lives up to now—and as long as you don’t generate bodhichitta, it will bring endless suffering to numberless sentient beings again. So destroy the one enemy, this self-cherishing thought. Think it is totally destroyed, and think that all sentient beings receive dharmakaya.

You can do tonglen, if you can, taking on others’ suffering and with loving kindness and compassion giving your body, possessions and merits to other sentient beings, so they all receive enlightenment, they achieve rupakaya.

Much of your day you can recite the following, just as you would recite a mantra such as OM MANI PADME HUM. Instead, recite the following like a mantra. If you can, do at least four malas a day of this:

By my having to experience this sickness, may all sentient beings be free immediately from all the diseases, spirit harm, negative karma, and defilements.

Pray like this and recite four malas of this each day. This prayer is from the great yogi Choje Götsangpa.

You can see this sickness is helping you, and that is why I said how fortunate you are. You can collect more than skies of merit and purify negative karma and defilements collected from beginningless rebirth. This brings you to enlightenment quickly. This is why I said at the beginning how fortunate you are to think in this way, to recognize this.

It is very, very, very good. In reality it is like this. This is a gain, it’s not a loss for you; it is the highest gain, so please do this.

With much love and prayers …

From the advice “How Fortunate You Are to Have This Sickness,” given in November 2016 by Lama Zopa Rinpoche and published in January 2018 by Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive on “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book”:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/how-fortunate-you-are-have-sickness

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Nepal, February 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has recorded a message to thank all who recited the practices requested for his health and long life.

Listen to Rinpoche’s message, and read the edited transcript:

“This is a message from Mickey Mouse, little one, little Mickey Mouse from Lawudo, expressing from the heart a billion, zillion, trillion thanks for alllllllllllllll your prayers: 15,249.5 recitations of the Diamond Cutter Sutra and 19,265 recitations of Dependent Arising: A Praise to Buddha, that is showing us dependent arising, the subtle one, that which shows exactly what emptiness is unified.

Even if you recited OM MANI PADME HUM, or even recited OM AH HUM, or even recited just OM day and night, or weeks, months and years.

So I thank a billion, zillion, trillion times.

This is also a big puja for yourself, for purification and to collect merits. Therefore, to free yourself from samsara and achieve enlightenment for sentient beings, so that means it is for all sentient beings that you have done this. Thank you very much.

If I stay longer, one year or a month or a week or day or an hour, I will try to benefit the fish, or pigs, or dogs—something simple. OK? Thank you very much.”

Listen to Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s message, recorded March 4, 2018, in Nepal:
https://fpmt.app.box.com/s/v6ekdwvz1ttedg44tw1ypo2wwlqimdzg

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 sitting outside the cafe at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, February 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche was at Kopan Monastery during February, between travels, and met with a number of people, including Khadro-la (Rangjung Neljorma Khandro Namsel Drönme) and a group of Chinese Sangha from Wutaishan. He gave an oral transmission to them in his room. 

Rinpoche talking with Kopan monks outside the cafe, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, February 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

After a magnitude 6.4 earthquake with many strong aftershocks affected Hualien, Taiwan, in early February, Rinpoche requested Sangha to recite the Vajra Cutter Sutra and do prayers for Taiwan and those impacted by the earthquake.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche during Palden Lhamo puja early on the morning of Losar, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, February 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

On Losar, Kopan nuns taking a pinch of chemar, part of the New Year’s celebration, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, February 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

On the first day of Losar, Rinpoche joined with Kopan Sangha for Palden Lhamo puja in the early morning and then did Guru Puja. 

Rinpoche with Ven. Pemba Sherpa, Ven. Jangsem, and Ven. Shenphen meeting the reincarnation of Trulshik Rinpoche, Tenzin Choekyi Lodoe Rinpoche, at Sitapaila on the fourth day of Losar, Nepal, February 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Rinpoche went and visited the reincarnation of Trulshik Rinpoche on the fourth day of Losar. 

Rinpoche with Oser Dorje Rinpoche, Kopan Monastery lower tantric college monks, and others doing prayers at Maratika Cave, Nepal, February 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Then Rinpoche traveled to Maratika Cave, the sacred cave associated with Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche) and longevity. While there Rinpoche, joined monks from Kopan and others, doing prayers and practices. Kopan’s lower tantric college monks were at Maratika reciting the Amitayus Long Life Sutra and the Guhyasamaja root text every day for Rinpoche’s long life.

Group photo of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Oser Dorje Rinpoche with Kopan Monastery lower tantric college monks and others at Maratika Cave, Nepal, February 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

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 Khadro-la blessing people with a Dharma text, Bhutan, May 2016. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

“My iPad contains the Kangyur, the Tengyur, many teachings. It is the same as a Dharma text. You can’t put it on the bed or down [low]. You have to respect it and put it higher,” Rinpoche explained in a short teaching on how to show proper respect for Dharma texts, including when they are in electronic form, during a session at the 2017 Light of the Path retreat. 

“You can’t put glasses or malas on top of Dharma texts. You have to respect them, treat them as Dharma, the holy body, revealing the path to liberate you from samsara and to achieve enlightenment. You have to respect them as Rare Sublime Dharma,” Rinpoche advises in a short video clip of the teaching.

Rinpoche emphasizes this point by talking about how Choden Rinpoche said that even one’s hand should go around, and not over, a Dharma text. Also objects such as a tea mug should not pass above a Dharma texts as it shows disrespect to the Rare Sublime Dharma.

Referring to the refuge part of lamrim teachings, Rinpoche stressed that it is very important to know the instructions on what is to be avoided and what to practice. If you are disrespecting Dharma texts, Rinpoche warns that it “pollutes the mind and obscures the mind. So by respecting [Dharma texts], then you create much good karma.”

Watch the teaching in this video clip “Proper Respect for Dharma Texts”:
https://youtu.be/aqUtQYAzKf4

Quoted text based on the unedited transcript for the 2017 Light for the Path retreat, which you can find here with video recordings of the complete teachings:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/light-of-the-path-teachings-2017/

Find more video clips from Lama Zopa Rinpoche:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5F6A5E3C2873F2EA

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 visit to the stupa at Sarnath, India, January 2017. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

By generating a bodhichitta motivation throughout each day, we can benefit ourselves and sentient beings, Lama Zopa Rinpoche explained while teaching at the 100 Million Mani Mantra Retreat in Italy.

Rinpoche’s advice, captured in a video clip from the October 10, 2017, teaching, emphasizes that by having a bodhichitta motivation in any number of activities, you are able to generate heaps of merit and become profoundly beneficial.  

Making Offerings

“Of course if you have an actual realization of bodhichitta, there is no question of merit,” Rinpoche says. “But even if you have an effortful motivation of bodhichitta, when you offer light—one light, even one Christmas light, whatever light, a butter lamp, one candle—you collect merits more than the sky. Wow, wow, wow!”

Circumambulating Holy Objects

Rinpoche says, “If you generate a bodhichitta motivation when you circumambulate, with each step going around circumambulating, you collect merits more than the sky.”

Eating and Drinking

“When you eat food, with each bite or drink, if it is done with a motivation of bodhichitta, then you are eating food for sentient beings, to serve sentient beings, to bring them to enlightenment,” Rinpoche says.

“And then also to make offering, make yourself in oneness with the guru-deity Chenrezig. Visualize Chenrezig in your heart, same as the guru. So with each bite, with each drink, you collect more than skies of merit. You collect with each spoonful, with each sip, merits more than the sky.”

Speaking

“If you generate the motivation of bodhichitta for when you talk, whether you are consulting, whether you are teaching Dharma, if you generate the motivation of bodhichitta, not even the realization, but effortful bodhichitta, then with each word you collect merits more than sky,” Rinpoche advises.

Walking

Rinpoche adds, “The same thing as circumambulation, when you are going for a walk, going shopping, going for pilgrimage, whatever, if it is done with a bodhichitta motivation, then with each step you collect more than skies of merits.”

The Best Motivation Is Bodhichitta

“As the Buddha said, to work for yourself and others, numberless sentient beings, the best motivation is bodhichitta. So all the buddhas, they checked, they see, it is like that,” Rinpoche says.

“Even if you don’t have a realization of bodhichitta, but you generate a bodhichitta motivation, for any activity you do—in every minute, in every second—you collect merits more than the sky! There is no time for depression. There is no space for depression. Depression, goodbye!”

Your Main Refuge Is Bodhichitta

If you pay attention to having a bodhichitta motivation throughout your life, your whole day, and with every activity, then it is your main practice and your main refuge.

Rinpoche explains, “When your life is so busy, your main refuge is bodhichitta. So every hour—not only every day, every hour, every minute, every second—is bodhichitta.” By doing this, you create so much merit, “more than the sky! Amazing, amazing!”

“By generating the motivation of bodhichitta, then when you do prayers all day long or for one hour, with each word you collect more than skies of merit. Can you imagine?” Rinpoche asks.

“You have to realize how you are most unbelievably fortunate! You are so fortunate. You are so fortunate this time. Next, next life not sure, but this life ….”

Rinpoche concludes, “With a bodhichitta motivation, whatever you are doing, working for the center, working for the company or the family, with bodhichitta, the merits you create, wow, wow, wow!”

To see Rinpoche giving this teaching, watch the video “Practicing Dharma Skillfully with Bodhichitta: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTcHrkEP8I8

The quotes from Rinpoche have been lightly edited and are based on the unedited transcript of the 100 Million Mani Mantra retreat in Italy, which you can find here with video recordings of the complete teachings:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/100-million-mani-mantra-retreat-2017/

Find more video clips from Lama Zopa Rinpoche:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5F6A5E3C2873F2EA

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 Khadro-la at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, February 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche arrived at Kopan Monastery in early February after spending two weeks at Tso Pema in India. Khadro-la (Rangjung Neljorma Khandro Namsel Drönme) visited Rinpoche at Kopan after he returned to the monastery.

Khadro-la joined Rinpoche for lunch. They then walked around the monastery, where they met Kamal, a long-time worker at Kopan who now has cancer. Khadro-la and Rinpoche did prayers with Kamal and blessed him. 

Rinpoche and Khadro-la meeting with Kamal, a long-time worker at Kopan who has cancer, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, February 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

On a tsog day, Khadro-la went with Rinpoche to Khachoe Ghakyil Ling, the Kopan nunnery, and did Vajrayogini self-initiation with the nuns. And on another day, Khadro-la and Rinpoche had lunch and then went to circumambulate the the base of Swayambhunath hill.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche celebrating the second day of Losar, giving a White Tara long life initiation, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, February 2018. Photo courtesy of Kopan Monastery’s Facebook page.

In mid-February, Rinpoche celebrated Losar, the Tibetan New Year, at Kopan. 

Phuntsok Rinpoche, Charok Lama, Rigsel Rinpoche, Losang Namgyal Rinpoche, and Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi on the second day of Losar at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, February 2018. Photo courtesy of Kopan Monastery’s Facebook page.

Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi, Kopan’s current abbot; Tenzin Phuntsok Rinpoche, the reincarnation of Geshe Lama Konchog; Thubten Rigsel Rinpoche, the reincarnation of Khensur Rinpoche Lama Lhundrup, Kopan’s former abbot; Losang Namgyal Rinpoche, a high lama of the Tamang people; Charok Lama; and many other young lamas were also in attendance at Kopan’s Losar activities, which included pujas and a White Tara long life initiation given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. 

Kopan monks attending a White Tara long life initiation given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche on the second day of Losar, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, February 2018. Photo courtesy of Kopan Monastery’s Facebook page.

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 Khyongla Rato Rinpoche at Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, January 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Keep up with Lama Zopa Rinpoche on his travels throughout the world by viewing new photo albums of Rinpoche’s journeys. The new photo album of Rinpoche’s recent trip to India contains sixty photos, covering Rinpoche’s time at Root Institute in Bodhgaya and in Tso Pema:
https://fpmt.org/teachers/zopa/gallery/india-january-2018/

Students at Maitreya School during a visit by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Bodhgaya, India, January 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

More photos from Rinpoche’s December visit to Nepal, to India in November, and to Italy, Austria, and the United States earlier in the year, plus many more, can be found on Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s photo gallery page:
https://fpmt.org/teachers/zopa/gallery/

The photo gallery display has been updated to optimize viewing on mobile phones and tablets. New features have been added; click or tap on photos to see captions and enter slideshow mode.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche circumambulating the lake at Tso Pema, India, January 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

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