Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice

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.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Tso Pema, India, 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche arrived in Tso Pema, a place of pilgrimage in Himachal Pradesh, India, on January 21, coming from Bodhgaya.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche receiving oral transmissions at Zigar Monastery, Tso Pema, India, January 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Rinpoche traveled to the holy site associated with the 8th-century Indian Buddhist master Padmasambhava, or Guru Rinpoche, to receive oral transmissions from Khenpo Thinle Dorjee, the abbot of Zigar Monastery, a Kagyu monastery. The transmissions included various texts, such as Milarepa’s life story. At the conclusion of the oral transmissions, Rinpoche offered a long-life praise that he composed and other long-life items to the khenpo. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Khenpo Thinle Dorjee, Tso Pema, India, January 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

The story of Padmasambhava’s association with Tso Pema, also known as Rewalsar, is that Padmasambhava angered the king of the area by teaching Dharma to his daughter, Mandarava. The king had Padmasambhava burned alive in a pyre that created great clouds of smoke.

But after several days, a lake appeared in the same spot and Padmasambhava was sitting in the middle of the lake on a lotus and the king came to see the error of his ways. “Tso Pema” is Tibetan for “Lotus Lake.”

During his two-week visit, Rinpoche also spent time circumambulating the lake. On a tsog day, Rinpoche did Vajrayogini self-initiation until 4 a.m. And on another day, he did Trukchuma (Kalarupa) puja for several sick people and all who need it until 2 a.m.

Near the end of Rinpoche’s stay in Tso Pema, he went up to a sacred cave where Padmasambhava meditated and offered tsog.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche making tsog offerings in the Guru Rinpoche cave above Tso Pema, India, January 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

A very large 123-foot (37.5-meter) tall Padmasambhava statue, completed in 2011 and blessed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2012, overlooks the lake.

Tso Pema, Himachal Pradesh, India, January 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 shopping for flower offerings, Singapore, March 2016. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche sent this letter to a family with whom he stayed. The letter contains advice on how to make this precious human life meaningful, suggesting a dedication for the worms and insects who are harmed when growing, picking, or offering flowers, and for any calves who are harmed in the production of milk for tea. Here’s an excerpt from Rinpoche’s letter:

I wanted to mention one thing. These days I have added in my prayers for the worms and insects harmed by growing, picking, and offering flowers. So many worms die or are killed for the flowers. Often where I go there are flowers in my room, therefore after lunch, if I do purification of pollutions received, I also normally try to do dedication, especially for the calves, because I drink so much tea. I dedicate like this:

Due to all the past, present, and future merits collected by me and all the three-time merits collected by numberless sentient beings and numberless buddhas, may all the calves who suffered so much, or who have died for this milk—the mothers and babies who are separated, with so much suffering and worrying—may they never be reborn in the lower realms and may they immediately be reborn in a pure land where they can get enlightened. May they receive a perfect human body, meet the Mahayana teachings and meet a perfectly qualified Mahayana guru revealing the unmistaken path to enlightenment, and by pleasing the holy mind of the virtuous friend, may they achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible.

These days I also include the worms that have died. I guess worms died for the flowers. I should also dedicate for the people who killed the animals, so I also started to dedicate for the people.

Anyway, of course, flowers are very beautiful. Of course when people own flowers, it’s not so easy, and they have to indirectly kill worms and insects for the flowers to grow.

For this enjoyment we can also collect so many causes of happiness, all the happiness, as I have mentioned, and especially the happiness of enlightenment, by offering these beautiful flowers to the Guru, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. All this is received by the kindness of sentient beings, the animals that died for this, the human beings who worked so hard.

Calves at Lawudo Gompa, Nepal, January 2017. Photo by Laura Miller.

What I wanted to say is this, if there are a lot of animals and worms that die, then I think it’s better not to dig for the plants in the garden. If you want flowers, you can buy them from the flower shop. You can put flowers there in pots, so you don’t have to dig.

Anyway, in case some worms get killed or something, maybe you can offer candles to the Buddha for those worms and dedicate like this:

I dedicate all the past, present and future merits collected by me, and all the three-time merits collected by numberless sentient beings and numberless buddhas, for that worm to never ever get reborn in the lower realms and to have a higher rebirth, and to generate bodhichitta and achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible.

At least do something like that, to pray for that worm, in case one gets killed.

Regarding flowers, maybe buy flowers which are in a pot from the garden shop. You can buy them and make offerings with them, and it is easy.

From the advice “How to Make This Life Most Beneficial,” given in October 2017 and published in December 2017 by Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive on “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book”:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/how-make-life-most-beneficial

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 talking with a person begging on the street after making an offering, Moscow, Russia, May 2017. Photo by Renat Alyaudinov.

When making charity to people who are begging, Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches, first think of bodhichitta. In a short video clip recorded during the 2017 Light of the Path retreat, Rinpoche explains that one should think, “The purpose of my life is to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsara and bring them to peerless happiness, buddhahood. Therefore, I must achieve state of omniscience. Therefore, I must make charity.”

“Then, think that all the past, present, and future happiness up to enlightenment came from that sentient beings. Think of the kindness,” Rinpoche says.

“Then after that, think of the three-times happiness you receive from this beggar, who is most precious, most kind, most dear, most wish-fulfilling. Trying to think like that is good.”

When making the offering, Rinpoche says, “I try to remember to make the offerings respectfully, with two hands. I offer to them like this, with the two hands.”

“Then when you offer, if possible, seal the offering with emptiness,” Rinpoche explains. “[Think that] I and the action of giving and to whom you are giving are empty. They do not exist from their own sides as they appear to you. Looking at emptiness, ultimate reality, you offer.”

So when charity is offered not only with bodhichitta but with emptiness, Rinpoche explains, “it becomes the remedy to samsara. Your charity becomes the remedy to samsara.”

“Then, you see, it becomes most pleasing. It becomes the best offering,” Rinpoche concludes.
“It becomes the offering to all the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—numberless Buddha, numberless Dharma, numberless Sangha.”

Watch Rinpoche teach on “How to Think When Making Charity to Beggars”:
https://youtu.be/_9d-ok1xows

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 with Ven. Tenzin Jamyang, a young Kopan monk now studying at Sera Je Monastery, at the entrance to Maitreya School and Tara Children’s Project, Bodhgaya, India, January 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche sent a letter to a student who was experiencing a lot of obstacles, as well as fear, unhappiness, and worry. Here’s an excerpt from Rinpoche’s advice given in January 2016:

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,

I heard about your difficulties. As you know, all these difficulties do not exist from their own side, even though they appear like that to our hallucinated mind. The difficulty appears to exist from its own side, to exist by itself. It appears real, using ordinary language.

Basically, what you believe is difficult is just your mind thinking, your mind merely labeling, “This is difficult.” Your mind is merely labeling that it is difficult and that’s how it came into existence. When the difficulty appeared to you, even though it is merely imputed, it appears totally opposite, as though it never came from the mind and it was never merely labeled by the mind. That is totally a hallucination.

For example, we are living our whole life in a hallucination, so like that, everything—including the I, form, sounds, smell, tangible objects; everything that appears to our senses, to our hallucinated mind—appears as real, as if something is existing from there. However, it doesn’t appear real unless our mind merely imputes it first. Everything that appears real is not true, it is a total hallucination. It is a totally hallucinated real I, a totally hallucinated real action and a totally hallucinated real object.

While everything—I, action, object—is totally empty of existing from its own side, it exists in mere name. Everything—I, action, object—exists in mere name; it is merely labeled by the valid mind, on the valid base.

What we think is difficult, in a complicated way, is all made up by our own concepts, and is to do with our own concepts.

Let me say something, what the great bodhisattva Shantideva has advised:

Whatever befalls me,
I shall not disturb my mental joy;
For having been made unhappy, I shall not accomplish what I wish,
And my virtues will decline.
  — [Bodhicaryavatara, Ch. 6, v. 9]

There are so many problems in the West; also in the East, but especially in the West. If there is a way for the problem to be fixed or mended, what is there to dislike about it? If there is a method then do it, and if there is no method and no way to fix it, then why dislike it? If there is a way to fix the problem, then do it, and if there isn’t, then no need to be worried. It just makes us mentally sick and it also causes physical sickness. As it increases more, it brings more problems.

Why be unhappy about something
If it can be remedied?
And what is the use of being unhappy about something
If it cannot be remedied?
  — [Bodhicaryavatara, Ch. 6, v. 10]

Please think about this. It is what Shantideva advised and this is my advice to you. When you think this way, it will bring happiness to your life. …

Read the complete advice “Remedy for Obstacles, Fear and Worry,” posted in January 2018 by Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive on “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book”:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/remedy-obstacles-fear-and-worry

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.