Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Geshe Tenzin Tenphel and students touring the grounds at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa as Rinpoche said he wanted to see everything, ILTK, Italy, October 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche regularly offers specific practice advice to students who write him. Rinpoche gave this advice about preliminaries and lamrim meditation to a student who had asked for life practices. The following is an excerpt from Rinpoche’s advice, given in October 2016:

What makes your life most meaningful is the lamrim. I suggest the main text for you to use is Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. If you haven’t studied this text already, then study it from beginning to end, reading through it four times. That itself is lamrim meditation if you read it slowly and relate it to your own life.

As you read, if there’s anything you don’t understand, you can mark the text—not with black ink, but with orange or yellow color. Mark it respectfully, thinking this is the holy Dharma, which has two aspects—one aspect is the realizations and one aspect is the text, the letters, which explain the realizations.

Holy Dharma has two realizations, in case of realizing the absolute Dharma—the cessation of all the obscurations, the sufferings, and the true path to that, which leads to the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness. These two are ultimate Dharma.

When you mark the text, you have to think that you are offering color with respect, like offering to a statue. Otherwise if you are just marking the text with a black line on top of the letter, it creates the negative karma to be born in hell, such as the second hell, called the Black Line Hell. Therefore, it’s important when you mark the text not to do it in a disrespectful manner.

The other thing is that you can buy a notebook and write nicely in that anything you don’t understand. Then you can meet with a geshe or elder student who has studied the lamrim well and you can ask the questions. In this way, you can learn. Or you can telephone and get the answers from someone who has studied the lamrim very well.

Study Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand four times and after that go through the lamrim outline using Liberation as a basis. Cycle through the lamrim outline completely three times.

After that, try to achieve the realization of correctly following the virtuous friend with thought and action, on the basis of the outline in the lamrim. Every day, more or less meditate on that. The time depends on yourself. Do this until you achieve the effortless realization of correctly following the virtuous friend.

After that, do the meditation on the graduated path of the lower capable being, up to karma. Particularly [focus] on the perfect human rebirth. Try to get the realization that your perfect human body is much more precious than skies filled with wish-granting jewels, so you realize the importance.

Even if we have skies filled with wish-granting jewels, that alone can’t help us to be free from the lower realms. That alone can’t help us to be free from samsara, free from lower nirvana, and we can’t achieve buddhahood from wish-granting jewels. With this perfect human body, even if we don’t have a tiny piece of a wish-granting jewel, we can achieve all of this up to enlightenment.

Read the complete advice “The Quickest Way to Achieve Enlightenment” posted in September 2017 by Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive on “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book”:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/quickest-way-achieve-enlightenment

Find more from Lama Zopa Rinpoche on lamrim study and practice on FPMT Education Service’s lamrim resources page:
https://fpmt.org/education/prayers-and-practice-materials/lam-rim/

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 blessing marine animals in the Marina Cala de’ Medici, Italy, October 2017. Photo by Piero Sirianni.

On October 8, 2017, Lama Zopa Rinpoche blessed marine wildlife at the Marina Cala de’ Medici on the Ligurian Sea in Italy.

Joining Rinpoche aboard MV Brigitte Bardot, a trimaran belonging to the conservation organization Sea Shepherd, were the crew and a number of animal welfare workers, including Angelo Vaira, the well-known Italian founder of ThinkDog, a positive training dog school. Also participating were members of the Lega Italiana Protezione Uccell (LIPU), the Italian League for Bird Protection. Given Rinpoche’s dedication to caring for animals, there was a natural connection between all involved. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche pouring blessed water from the deck of the Brigitte Bardot into the Marina Cala de’ Medici, Italy, October 2017. Photo by Piero Sirianni.

Hundreds of people attended the event, which saw the release of seagulls from a LIPU rescue center and Lama Zopa Rinpoche blessing all the sea animals and birds with prayers and mantras. Rinpoche also blessed the pets that students had brought to the marina.

On the dock, Ven. Drachom, who has liberated millions of sentient being in Singapore, helped arrange a table with a stupa, texts, and other holy objects for blessings. There, Rinpoche shared advice on how to bless animals and the benefits of mantras.

While on the boat, Rinpoche explained the blessings that he was doing, which included blessing a large jug of water that was then poured into the sea. At Rinpoche’s request, protections, such as the Namgyälma mantra, were attached to the boat. 

Many visitors used this opportunity to board the boat, which set a world record in 1998 as the fastest motored vessel to circumnavigate the globe. The vessel bears the name of French actress and model Brigitte Bardot, who became a well-known animal rights activist and whom Sea Shepherd founder Captain Paul Watson took on an anti-sealing trip in 1977. The vessel was used in 2010 to campaign against Japanese whaling operations in the Antarctic Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

The event at the marina was organized by Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, the FPMT center in Pomaia, Italy, where Rinpoche is currently guiding a month-long retreat.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Marina Cala de’ Medici, Italy, October 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Read about events, retreats, and classes at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa.

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, Ven. Roger Kunsang, and Markus Igel walking to subway in Vienna, Austria, September 2017. Photo by Lobsang Sherab.

In late September, Lama Zopa Rinpoche visited Panchen Losang Chogyen Gelugzentrum in Vienna, Austria. This was Rinpoche’s first official stay in Austria and his first visit to the FPMT center that was started nearly thirty-three years ago. There Rinpoche gave teachings, refuge, and the Great Medicine Buddha initiation.

Center founder and current spiritual program coordinator Andrea Husnik and center director Stefan Seidler were in attendance for Rinpoche’s monumental visit. The teachings were supported by a team of hard-working volunteers—many of whom had taken a week off work—who forewent meals and sleep, and gave their all in order to deliver incredible hospitality to Rinpoche and all participants.

Following the Light of the Path retreat, and a long flight from North Carolina, United States, to Austria, Rinpoche rested for a number of days with the Igel family at their home in Vienna. During his stay, Rinpoche was offered an apple strudel, which the mother of the family had made. The dish was so good that Rinpoche asked if he could be shown how to make the dessert. During the filming of an instructional video (see below), Rinpoche offered advice on how to cook for the benefit of others.

Rinpoche took a number of walks in the city parks, taking every opportunity to bless the dogs that he passed. While using the subway on his way to a restaurant, Rinpoche saw a homeless man to whom he made offerings. Throughout his stay, while Rinpoche walked through the streets of Vienna, he recited OM MANI PADME HUM out loud, blessing and benefiting everyone that he encountered. 

Watch “How to Cook Apple Strudel and Actualize the Path to Enlightenment” on YouTube

Rinpoche’s recorded teachings in Vienna, Austria, are available as a part of Rinpoche Available Now:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/lama-zopa-rinpoche-teachings-vienna-tabs/

View a gallery of images from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s visit to Austria:
https://fpmt.org/teachers/zopa/gallery/austria-vienna-september-october-2017/

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 entering the gompa tent at the 100 Million Mani Mantra Retreat, Italy, October 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues giving teachings at the 100 Million Mani Mantra Retreat, which is currently taking place at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Pomaia, Italy. Around 400 people are attending, including a number of center directors and regional and national coordinators.

On October 9, the first day of teaching after Rinpoche completed giving a Great Chenrezig initiation, Rinpoche attended the early morning Lama Chöpa practice session. Under the canopy of a large tent that is serving as the teaching hall, Rinpoche offered advice on the importance and benefits of Lama Chöpa. This heart-practice, written by Panchen Losang Chokyi Gyaltsen, is undertaken at the start of every day during the retreat, and Rinpoche further expanded his advice on the subject during his teaching at later sessions that day.

Rinpoche said that students are so incredibly fortunate to be able to do Lama Chöpa, to hear the words and to do the practice; Lama Chöpa has all the vital points. Rinpoche stressed that if students can integrate their lives into the practice of the lamrim, then this is the key that opens hundreds of doors of hundreds of teachings.

Watch Rinpoche Teach on Lama Chöpa

Ven. Olivier Rossi is serving as the retreat leader with Ven. Lhundup Jamyang and Paula Chichester also providing leadership during retreat sessions. The structure of the retreat is based on the nyung nä practice, which is a Chenrezig fasting retreat with which many people in attendance have a strong connection.

The surroundings of Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, which is located in Tuscany, and the current climate are beautiful and highly favorable for a comfortable retreat experience.

Speaking previously on the mani mantra Rinpoche said, “The benefits of reciting the mantra of the Buddha of Compassion are countless, as the sky has no limits. Even just one recitation of OM MANI PADME HUM purifies completely every breaking of the four root vows of individual liberation and every other negative karma.”

Find Lama Chöpa resources at the Foundation Store:
https://shop.fpmt.org/search.asp?keyword=lama+chopa&search=

The 100 Million Mani Retreat at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Italy began on October 4. You can watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche teach live on YouTube and Facebook. For links and details:
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.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching in front of the Chenrezig statue at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, October 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

During the 100 Million Mani Mantra Retreat in Pomaia, Italy, Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave the following advice to control the wildfires in California:

Everybody should make strong prayers to Chenrezig to purify all the six-realm sentient beings—their negative karma and defilements collected since beginningless rebirths up to now—in this world and in California in particular. The fire depends on the wind. It seems that the wind there is strong and so the fire continues. Therefore, we need to make strong prayers to Chenrezig, visualizing nectar like a waterfall on the six realms, on this world, and on California in particular. Visualize that the fires are immediately stopped and the wind is controlled. Make strong prayers.

[Rinpoche instructed retreat participants to recite the long dharani of Chenrezig sixty times.]

Long Dharani of Chenrezig

NAMO RATNA TRAYĀYA / NAMA ĀRYA JÑĀNA SĀGARA VAIROCHANA VYŪHA RĀJĀYA / TATHĀGATĀYA / ARHATE / SAMYAKSAṂ BUDDHĀYA / NAMAḤ SARVA TATHĀGATEBHYAḤ / ARHATBHYAḤ SAMYAKSAṂ BUDDHEBHYAḤ / NAMA ĀRYA AVALOKITEŚHVARĀYA / BODHISATTVĀYA / MAHĀSATTVĀYA / MAHĀKĀRUṆIKĀYA / TADYATHĀ / OṂ DHARA DHARA / DHIRI DHIRI / DHURU DHURU / IṬṬE VAṬṬE / CHALE CHALE / PRACHALE PRACHALE / KUSUME / KUSUMA / VARE / ILI MILI / CHITI JVALAMAPANAYA SVĀHĀ

After reciting, think that all the people’s negative karma to be affected by the fire is totally purified. Think that all the negative karma to be burned and killed by fire is totally stopped and purified. Then, think that all the negative karma of the people who died in the fire is purified at the same time. Pray: “I request to Chenrezig that they not be reborn in the lower realms and to be born instead in the pure land of a buddha, where they can become enlightened. At the very least, may they receive a perfect human body, meet Mahayana teachings, meet a perfectly qualified Mahayana guru revealing the unmistaken path to enlightenment, and achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible.”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave this advice during the October 16, 2017, evening session of the 100 Million Mani Mantra Retreat at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, Italy. Transcribed by Ven. Joan Nicell. Edited by Mandala.

The 100 Million Mani Retreat at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Italy began on October 4. You can watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche teach live on YouTube and Facebook. For links and details:
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.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche at an Indian restaurant in Vienna, Austria, September 2017. Photo by Markus Igel.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave advice to a student who wrote to him about experiencing many obstacles and low self-esteem. Here’s an excerpt from Rinpoche’s advice, given in February 2017:

Regarding your question about low self-esteem, many people have low self-esteem, but it is by not thinking about karma and thinking only about worldly things, so low self-esteem is really a wrong label. It is not thinking about and understanding karma, so it’s like a wrong label. It’s a worldly mind. You think you don’t have what the country or society expects, but in reality the most important thing is Dharma. By understanding karma, you can see this. So I think low self-esteem is a wrong label; it is a more worldly way of thinking. …

The most important thing is to help any being with our body, speech, and mind, to help others, even insects, to help anybody who has any problem, to help in whatever way we can. I was saying in the teachings at Root Institute [in January 2017] that to share even an Indian rupee, even an anna [a small currency unit, worth less that a rupee] even if we only have that, we can make charity and share with those in need. In our daily life every single thing, whatever we can do to help others with our body, speech, and mind, it is very important in everyday life to help others as much as possible. In that way we create merit, unbelievable, unbelievable merit, especially if it is done with bodhichitta. That is very, very important.

Then making offering—for example, when we eat and drink—making offering to the guru, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. By making offering to the guru it is the highest merit and the greatest purification and therefore the quickest way to enlightenment. [This includes] anything done toward the guru, such as obtaining advice, fulfilling the guru’s holy wishes and these things. Offering to the guru, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha—these are very powerful [objects] to create good karma, and most powerful is the guru. It says this in teachings of sutra and tantra; I’m not just making it up.

Also, taking care of our parents, not with attachment, but by thinking of them as sentient beings. So this life’s kind mother and kind father who took care of us, every single service [for them] is very powerful, good karma. We start to experience the result, happiness, in this life and then for many hundreds of thousands of lives, on and on, for lifetimes.

Read the complete advice “Low Self-Esteem,” posted in August 2017 by Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive on “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book”:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/low-self-esteem-0

The 100 Million Mani Retreat at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Italy began on October 4! You can watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche teach live on YouTube and Facebook. For links and details:
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.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching on the throne at 100 Million Mani Mantra Retreat, ILTK, Italy, October 2017. Photo by Piero Sirianni.

Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa (ILTK) in Italy is hosting the month-long 100 Million Mani Mantra Retreat with Lama Zopa Rinpoche that began last week. ILTK shared highlights of the first night’s teaching:

“We gather here to do the best thing in the life, to do the best thing in the the world, the best things in the life. And what we’re doing is the answer to all the problems in the world. The body, speech, and mind in the meditation of Chenrezig, the Compassion Buddha, is amazing, the most amazing thing.” With these words Lama Zopa Rinpoche began teaching at the 100 Million Mani Mantra Retreat at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa.

Rinpoche talked about how we have to realize how fortunate we are that we’ve met with Mahayana Buddhism and that we shouldn’t take for granted our perfect human rebirth and meeting Mayahana Buddhism and great teachers like His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Rinpoche continued that with so many problems in the world—political, environmental and so forth—we are all desperately looking for a solution. “But the solution is inside our mind,” Rinpoche said. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, with Ven. Roger Kunsang, entering the teaching venue at the 100 Million Mani Retreat, ILTK, Italy, October 2017. Photo by Piero Sirianni.

He encouraged students to remember that reciting OM MANI PADME HUM is for all sentient beings and that not one being is left out, no matter now tiny. Reciting OM MANI PADME HUM one time with bodhichitta is fantastic, Rinpoche said.

“So it is incredible what we are doing here, that is answer for everything, answer for the world and answer for all your problems, to be free from samsara. … And not only that, to achieve buddhahood, the total cessation of obscurations and completion of all the realizations.”

Rinpoche offered the observation that we get so busy with studying, but then, when something happens, we are not prepared. Without correctly practicing, Rinpoche warned, we may be worse than someone who has never met the Dharma.

Later in the teaching Rinpoche said that we should take inspiration from Geshe Chekawa, who was happy when his body was suffering, because he was destroying his self-cherishing. Rinpoche told the retreatants that it is our choice and that problems do not exist from their own side, so that the same experience can be for us happiness or suffering. He encouraged us to cherish the one who abuses us, they are so precious and will lead us to enlightenment.

Watch the first teaching by Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the 100 Million Mani Mantra Retreat

https://youtu.be/mxSoe9TIoB4

Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s daily teachings at the 100 Million Mani Mantra Retreat in Italy are being broadcast live over Facebook and YouTube:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/

You can watch recordings of previous teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche online:
https://fpmt.org/RinpocheNow/

Read advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche about the benefits of Chenrezig Practice:
https://fpmt.org/education/prayers-and-practice-materials/chenrezig-mantra-and-practice/

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 the Light of the Path retreat, North Carolina, US, September 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

On September 15, a long life puja was offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the conclusion of the Light of the Path 2017 retreat, which was organized by Kadampa Center in North Carolina, US. During the puja, Merry Colony, a long-time student and current director of Milarepa Center, offered the following praise to Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

To Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche,

From the vast sky of dharmakaya space, like a star appearing in the light of day, the most rare of fortunate events ripened when in the Himalayan village of Thame, Nepal, you appeared in this human form. Before you could even walk, you showed all the signs of being the unmistaken incarnation of the great Lawudo Lama meditator, Kunzang Yeshe. What a great auspiciousness!

As a child you thought to go to Mindroling Monastery in Tibet, but instead your uncle Ngawang Gendun brought you to the monastery of Domo Geshe Rinpoche. Thus, you ended up in Buxa after fleeing Tibet. While in Buxa, the monk Chumbi brought you to the room of Lama Thubten Yeshe and a karmic bond that would come to shine a great light on the dark land of the West was rekindled. What a great auspiciousness!

When Zina [Rachevsky] first requested Lama to teach in Bodhgaya, it was you, Supreme One, who accepted the request. Inspired by Kachen Yeshe Gyaltsen, you taught the first five-day course, which quickly grew to become a biannual event at Kopan. Now, forty-five years later, you have given the keys to liberation and enlightenment to tens of thousands of students at Kopan alone. What a great auspiciousness!

When the world turned dark on Losar morning in 1984 and Lama Yeshe passed away, you immediately took the helm of the FPMT organization and then traveled without break for so many years, steering the fledgling group of forty centers to its current status of more than 160 centers, projects, and services. Impeccably following the advice of His Holiness, you protected the centers and students from danger, becoming the mother, father, and protector of us all. What a great auspiciousness!

As the organization grew, you invited the most highly educated of Sera geshes to teach so that students everywhere could learn the great philosophical texts, while always ensuring that practice and the heart of service remained at the core. Like this, you initiated FPMT’s Basic Program and grew the Masters Program, paving the way for a new generation of well-educated and well-integrated teachers to serve the organization. What a great auspiciousness!

Lama Zopa Rinpoche during a tsog puja at the Light of the Path retreat, North Carolina, US, September 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

To help secure the longevity of the Sera monastic education, you established the Sera Je Food Fund, enabling the monks to focus on their studies and your students to create vast skies of merit. Likewise, you have overseen the continuous growth of Kopan Monastery and Khachoe Ghakyil Nunnery and have rebuilt monasteries vulnerable to degeneration in Mongolia, and in Tsum and Jailsa in Nepal, which are now flourishing. What a great auspiciousness!

Your vast vision to bring holy objects to every corner of the world is without equal. Exceeding the wishes of Lama Yeshe, two great statues of Maitreya Buddha will now be built in India, while great prayer wheels, stupas, Guru Rinpoche statues, giant thangkas, and other holy objects are going up around the world. Due to Rinpoche’s limitless compassion, even the animals and those without faith can now create merit, helping to bring peace to the world and balance to the elements. What a great auspiciousness!

Due to Rinpoche’s vision of benefiting sentient beings as vast as space, the Sanghata Sutra, the Sutra of Golden Light, the Vajra Cutter Sutra, and others are now recited regularly throughout the whole world; many thousands of nyung nä retreats have been completed; and many 100 million mani retreats and so many individual lamrim and deity retreats have been done. And due to Rinpoche’s indescribable kindness and guidance, we now have everything we need to help ourselves and others at the critical time of death. What a great auspiciousness!

Your help for children, the poor, the sick, and the elderly manifests in an ever-expanding circle of schools, homes for the destitute, clinics, and an eye hospital in Tibet. For so many animals bound for slaughter, you have created safe havens. Most recently, due to your great concern for the elderly who have been left alone in your homeland, an old-age Dharma home will be built where Sherpas destitute of help can live out their lives with Dharma and in peace. What a great auspiciousness!

But greatest of all your holy deeds are the unmatched, unexcelled, and unending treasury of Dharma teachings that Rinpoche gives every moment, with every breath, and with every movement of your holy body, speech, and mind. Having crisscrossed the globe continuously for more than forty-five years, you have given teachings like no other on the heart of the path—how to correctly devote to the virtuous friend—so that we may receive the nectar blessings needed to actualize the path. You have shown us how to carry out all our practices in the most extensive way to create the most extensive merit of virtue and merit of wisdom. You have shown us how to meditate precisely on the subtle points of emptiness so that we may cut the root of our ignorance. And by your peerless faultless example, you have shown us perfectly how to take the essence from every moment of our unfathomably perfect rebirths and make our lives most beneficial for others. What an indescribable auspiciousness!

Merry Colony offering praise to Lama Zopa Rinpoche during the long life puja at the Light of the Path retreat, North Carolina, US, September 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

And yet, despite Rinpoche’s atomic energy and passion to blast us out of samsara, we are still children often lost and confused, in need of your continual guidance and care. Guru Chenrezig, Vajradhara, hear the prayers of your disciple children. You are our sole refuge protector and savior, our light of the path. Don’t ever leave us. Until we attain your enlightened state, hold us in your compassion and guide us.

Having shown us how to open the door of Dharma, we will work diligently to give up the meaningless affairs of this life. Having opened our hearts, we will work continuously to benefit living beings. Having opened our wisdom eye, we will persevere in our analysis of how things exist. Having saved our lives, we will dedicate ourselves to becoming most quickly like you so that our every action will be suffused with bodhichitta, our every breath most meaningful for others. May our pure practice be the cause for you to stay with us forever.

Guru Chenrezig, Vajradhara, hear the prayers of your disciple children. You are our sole refuge protector and savior, our light of the path. Don’t ever leave us. Until we attain your enlightened state, hold us in your compassion and guide us. May all auspiciousness continue to ripen.

Written and read by the devoted disciple Merry Colony at the conclusion of the Light of the Path retreat in Black Mountain, North Carolina, September 15, 2017.

Participants of the Light of the Path retreat, North Carolina, US, September 2017. Photo by Ven. Losbang 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.

The 100 Million Mani Retreat at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Italy begins on October 4! You can watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche teach live on YouTube and Facebook. For links and details:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/

Lama Zopa Rinpoche giving a Medicine Buddha initiation in Vienna, Austria, September 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

In the Medicine Buddha sadhana published by FPMT Education Services, Lama Zopa Rinpoche offers advice on doing Medicine Buddha practice. Mantra recitation as part of the practice is very powerful, as Rinpoche explains:

The Medicine Buddha encompasses all the buddhas. This means that when we practice the seven-limb prayer and make offerings with the seven limbs, we receive the same merit as we would if we had made offerings to all the buddhas. Similarly, when we recite the mantra of Medicine Buddha, we collect unbelievable merit just as when we offer the seven-limb practice to Medicine Buddha.

To recite the Medicine Buddha mantra brings inconceivable merit. Manjushri requested the eight tathagatas (Guru Shakyamuni Buddha and the seven Medicine Buddhas) to reveal a special mantra that would make the prayers they (the eight tathagatas) made in the past (prayers to be able to actualize the happiness of sentient beings by attaining the path to enlightenment and pacifying various problems, to be able to see all the buddhas, and for all wishes to be quickly realized) to quickly come to pass, especially for those sentient beings born in the time of the five degenerations who have small merit and who are possessed and overwhelmed by various diseases and spirit harms.

During that time, all the eight tathagatas, in one voice, taught the Medicine Buddha mantra. Therefore, if you recite the mantra every day, the buddhas and bodhisattvas will always pay attention to you, and they will guide you. Vajrapani, owner of the secrets, and the four guardians will always protect and guide you. All your negative karmas will be pacified, and you will never be born in the three lower realms. Even just hearing a recitation of the names of the eight tathagatas pacifies all diseases and spirit harms—even spirit harms that arise as a condition of disease—and all your wishes are fulfilled.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche circumambulates the Medicine Buddha statue at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington, US, August 2016. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

This is just a brief explanation of the benefits of the Medicine Buddha practice. This practice is especially beneficial if you are helping others, especially if you are doing healing work. It helps you to be more accurate and beneficial. You will receive much support, not only from the eight tathagatas, but from the four clairvoyant devas as well. These devas can help you to diagnose and understand the right method to heal, as they are associated with the eight tathagatas.

Excerpted from Medicine Buddha Sadhana by Ngawang Losang Tenpa Gyältsän, translated by Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, and prepared by Ven. Thubten Gyatso. Published by FPMT Education Services. Students can find the practice and mantra in this sadhana:
https://fpmt.org/wp-content/uploads/education/prayers/medicine_buddha_sadhana_c5.pdf

More prayers and practices can be found on FPMT.org:
https://fpmt.org/education/prayers-and-practice-materials/

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, accompanied by attendants and students, circumambulates Boudhanath Stupa. Nepal, March 2017. Photo by Bill Kane.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has stressed the importance of circumambulating holy objects like stupas and has given specific advice for how to do that. In March 2017, when he led a large group of students in a late-night circumambulation of the great stupa at Boudhanath in Nepal those present were referred to a short printout based on advice from Rinpoche that appears on Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive’s website.

In brief, Rinpoche recommends the following steps:

FIRST, generate a strong motivation of bodhichitta.

SECOND, think that you have manifested numberless bodies yourself and that you are leading all sentient beings in the circumambulation.

THIRD, recite the special mantras and Buddha’s names:

CHOM DÄN DÄ DE ZHIN SHEG PA DRA CHOM PA YANG DAG PAR DZOG PÄI SANG GYÄ PÄL GYÄL WA SHAKYA THUB PA LA CHHAG TSHÄL LO

OM NAMO DASHA DEKA TRI KALA SARVA RATNA TRAYAYA MAMA PRADAKSHA SU PRA DAKSHA SARVA PAPAM BISHODHANI SVAHA (7X)

Reciting the second Buddha’s name and mantra increases the power of circumambulation or prostration ten million times:

CHOM DÄN DÄ DE ZHIN SHEG PA DRA CHOM PA YANG DAG PAR DZOG PÄI SANG GYÄ RIN CHHEN GYÄL TSHÄN LA CHHAG TSHÄL LO (7X)

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, along with Sangha and other students, circumambulates the Dhamek stupa in Sarnath, India. January 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

FOURTH, visualize and always keep in mind that all the holy objects you are circumambulating (and all other holy objects) are manifestations of your root guru. 

FIFTH, as you walk, recite mantras and prayers or texts you have memorized such as OM MANI PADME HUM, Vajrasattva mantra, Mitukpa mantra, the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas, Vajra Cutter Sutra, Praises to Buddha (Shakyamuni Buddha, Praise by Way of the Twelve Deeds) and Buddha’s mantra, Praises to the Twenty-one Taras and Tara’s mantra, Chanting the Names of Manjushri, Lama Tsongkhapa’s Guru Yoga prayer (migtsema) or In Praise of Dependent Origination (Dependent Arising: A Praise of the Buddha from The Splendor Of An Autumn Moon), the prayer for refuge and bodhichitta, the five powerful mantras* and so on. If you haven’t memorized these, you can read the texts as you go around.

SIXTH, as you do each circumambulation, dedicate it and give away the merit.

SEVENTH, rejoice in this unbelievable practice! Now dedicate the merit by reciting the dedication prayers, long life prayers, and mantras to increase the merit. Dedicate well and extensively in order to generate bodhichitta. Give away all the merits to all sentient beings and think they have achieved enlightenment.

Crowds circumambulate Boudhanath Stupa on Chokor Duchen (the Day of Miracles). Nepal, March 2017. Photo by Bill Kane.

*  The five powerful mantras are Kunrig (Vairochana); Mitukpa (Akshobya); Namgyalma (Ushnishavijaya); Stainless Pinnacle (Ushnishavimala); and Wish-Granting Wheel. 

This advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche on circumambulation appears in greater detail on Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive’s website:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/kyabje-zopa-rinpoches-advice-circumambulation

To learn more about practices related to stupas, visit Stupas: A Resource Guide:
https://fpmt.org/education/practice/holy-objects/stupas-resources/

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.

Ven. Roger Kunsang driving Rinpoche to the teaching hall in one of the “bodhichitta buses” at Light of the Path, Black Mountain, North Carolina, US, August 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

The month-long 2017 Light of the Path retreat in North Carolina, US, concluded on September 17. Recorded video and audio of the teachings in English as well as in translation to Chinese, French, Italian, and Spanish are all available from FPMT.org, where you can also find the unedited English transcript of Rinpoche’s teachings.

Photos from Rinpoche’s visit to North Carolina have been posted in a new photo album.

From Light of the Path, Rinpoche traveled to Vienna, Austria, where he will be teaching September 29-October 1 at Panchen Losang Chogyen Gelugzentrum.

Then, on October 4, Rinpoche begins the month-long 100 Million Mani Retreat at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Italy.

Details on live streaming these events will be announced soon.

Links to resources in this post

Light of the Path 2017 video, audio, and transcript:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/light-of-the-path-teachings-2017/

Lama Zopa Rinpoche in North Carolina photo album:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/mv5XcRHpnRbuSgnc7

Information on the 100 Million Mani Retreat at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Italy:
https://www.iltk.org/en/lama-zopa-rinpoche-2017/

Live streaming video of Lama Zopa Rinpoche teachings:
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 at Light of the Path, Black Mountain, North Carolina, US, September 2017. Photo by Kalleen Mortensen.

During a session on September 4 at the Light on the Path retreat, Lama Zopa Rinpoche taught on several topics, including continuing a translation of Nagarjuna’s Praise to Satisfy Sentient Beings. From that, Rinpoche spoke to participants about the importance of working at Dharma centers. What follows is an edited version of Rinpoche’s advice on serving sentient being through working for an FPMT center.

You can see that working for the FPMT organization, working for the Dharma center wherever you are, is not just physical work—making a road or building a house or something. (Although even that can be for sentient beings!) Do you understand how bringing the wisdom light of Dharma to the minds of sentient beings—which are like a dark room where they have suffered continuously without end since beginningless rebirths—is so important? How bringing the light of Dharma to the darkness of their hearts and minds is so important?

In the center, whatever you are doing—whether you are the director, the assistant director, the bookkeeper, the cook, the cleaner—is for sentient beings. You are working for sentient beings. You have to keep your mind as Buddha explained and as Nagarjuna explained in Praise to Satisfying Sentient Beings. What you are doing and what has been explained is the same, not opposite.

So, think in your heart about sentient beings. Then, work and benefit sentient beings through whatever work you do. That is what is most pleasing to Buddha’s holy mind. That is what is most pleasing to numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas. It is most pleasing to the guru—His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lama Yeshe, and so forth. Do you understand? Working for sentient beings is most pleasing to them. Do you see now what is being talked about here in Praise to Satisfying Sentient Beings?

You have to realize that you are not wasting your time, your life. If you go to the beach, you lay your naked body down and spend hours and hours—all day long—there. Then you get into the water, like the sharks. Before, many of those sharks were naked people on the beach. The sharks have been naked people on the beach numberless times. (As I told you, the fish and fishermen trade places, the animals and butchers trade places.) Each person has his own trip of what “pleasure” means. There are all kinds in the world. So now think: “Do I prefer that, or, helping the FPMT Dharma organization and the FPMT centers?”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Light of the Path, September 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

In an FPMT center, there is a resident teacher who teaches lamrim philosophy—either simply or complexly—whatever is needed. If he or she doesn’t speak English, then a translator is provided. And nowadays, even the Western students themselves are able to explain and teach. Before, we needed geshes. Now that the Masters Program and Basic Program are running, lay students teach philosophy, even in centers where there are geshes. FPMT developed this. But to have all that, you need facilities—you need many things. So, you provide those things. And you need all that to help sentient beings, to help yourself and to help others.

Between the body and mind, everyone at the Dharma center is there to help the minds of sentient beings. By running the center with the mind of Dharma—correctly following the virtuous friend, renunciation, bodhichitta, and emptiness (without even talking about tantra)—whatever you are doing there, whatever the center does becomes virtue. Everything becomes the cause of achieving nirvana and nothing becomes the cause of achieving samsara. Everything becomes the cause of enlightenment. Everything becomes the cause of enlightenment if the main effort of everyone working in the center is put into cultivating a bodhichitta motivation. This is the best way to benefit sentient beings.

To bring about world peace, the basic thing needed is for people to learn about and develop compassion. Basic Dharma is compassion. If you create negative karma, if you harm other sentient beings, the result is that you will be harmed for hundreds, thousands, and millions of lifetimes. If you benefit others, then you will have success in your life for hundreds, thousands, millions, and billions of lifetimes—it goes on and on. All happiness comes.

At the Dharma center, you teach basic Buddhism: compassion and wisdom. Therefore, students come to know about karma. They abandon negative karma, which causes suffering, and create good karma, which brings happiness. Dharma centers bring so much peace and compassion to the world. They teach compassion and wisdom. They teach what is right and what is wrong. From that which is right, comes all happiness up to enlightenment. From that which is wrong, comes all the sufferings. That is why students need to learn Dharma. And not only lamrim, but philosophy too.

At Light of the Path, Ven. Chantal Carrerot, Paula Chichester, and Alexis Benelhadj request Rinpoche to give a Vajrayogini retreat at Institut Vajra Yogini in France, September 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

So, the centers are sooooo important. The centers are where sentient beings are allowed to learn Dharma and to meditate. Centers are where there are facilities, teachers, translators. They are so, so, so important for sentient beings. You cannot imagine how important they are, how needed they are. In the centers, everything that is done is for sentient beings. Can you imagine? It’s so important, so important, so important.

By remembering that you are involved in this, you should always be happy. As I often say, I thought people who had won at soccer were angry—because they weren’t smiling; their veins pop out they raise up their arms! Later, I realized it meant that they were unbelievably happy. But that’s nothing. That happiness is nothing because it doesn’t protect them from the lower realms.

For us, we have to be joyous nonstop like a soccer player who has won a match. We have to express our joy—with our arms raised—day and night, all the time, every second. People might think you are crazy because you aren’t playing soccer! If you are defeating other people in a match, it’s OK for you to raise your arms, but because you aren’t defeating other people in a match, they think you are crazy and should go to an institution. In reality, you are making so much merit, so much happiness in every second—it’s unbelievable, unbelievable. You are following the guru’s advice and fulfilling the guru’s holy wishes, which collects the highest merit. Whatever you are doing while working for the center collects the highest merit and is the greatest purification of negative karma collected since beginning rebirths. You have to recognize that. 

Excerpted from Light of the Path 2017, Blue Ridge Mountains, North Carolina, United States, September 4, 2017. Edited by Mandala for FPMT.org.

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.

Find recordings of Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching around the world, including at the Light of the Path retreat at https://fpmt.org/RinpocheNow/.

Join Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s 100 Million Mani Retreat at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Italy: October 4-November 5, 2017. Find out more at:
https://www.iltk.org/en/lama-zopa-rinpoche-2017/