Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, New Zealand, May 2015. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

“[Y]ou should make sure that being together with someone becomes a cause of enlightenment by keeping in mind the motivation of bodhichitta,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches in Joyful Parents, Successful Children, a new publication from Amitabha Buddhist Centre in Singapore, now available through the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

“You can use your relationship to practice morality by, for example, observing the five lay vow of abstaining from killing, stealing, adultery, lying and mind-altering substances. Likewise, having a partner provides an opportunity for you to practice the other five perfections of giving, patience, perseverance, concentration and wisdom. If you can do this, they will give you enlightenment just like your children.

“You can also think about your partner in exactly the same way as your children, ‘I have received every happiness experienced throughout beginningless lives from this person.’ Just that kindness is unimaginable, but on top of that, you also receive all your future happiness from them. In addition, you also receive liberation from every suffering, which is much more precious, from them. Then, you also receive enlightenment, which is even more precious, from that person. Thinking in this way, the conclusion is that your partner is the most precious, most dear and most kind person in your entire life.”

Find the complete Joyful Parents, Successful Children on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/joyful-parents-successful-children

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 at a plant nursery, California, US, October 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

When Rinpoche was at his home in California in October and part of November last year, he created a new flower offering card. Rinpoche then had the card made into a 3-foot (1-meter) tall sign, so that when you first enter the extensive gardens around Rinpoche’s house you read it. 

This is what the card says:

Every single flower here is offered to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, on behalf of every single sentient being in each realm, numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals in the numberless universes, every single fish in the ocean size as large as a mountain and ones who are so small that you can only see through a machine, numberless pitiful ants, numberless pitiful mosquitos, numberless pitiful maggots, slugs, tiny crabs at the beach and so forth, every animal, numberless human beings in different universes, numberless suras and asuras to be free from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and the causes and to achieve peerless happiness, the cessation of all the obstacles and completion of all the realizations. 

This means every single flower is every sentient being’s offering and this is similar with the water offerings, it is offered from every sentient being and is every sentient being’s water offering.

Thank you very much.

Rinpoche said the card could be made available to others and it could be placed where there are many flower and water offerings. (Rinpoche’s home has an incredible number of water and flower offerings.)

You can find the flower offering card in the FPMT Foundation Store:
https://shop.fpmt.org/Flower-Offering-Card–PDF_p_2550.html

The flower offering card in the garden at Khachoe Dechen Ling, California, US, November 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

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, Osel Labrang, Sera Monastery, India, December 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“As a parent, you should also teach your children that when someone harms, disrespects or even abuses them, the best response is forgiveness. Forgiveness is extremely important – it opens the hearts of both those who forgive and those who are forgiven,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches in Joyful Parents, Successful Children, a new publication from Amitabha Buddhist Centre in Singapore, now available through the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

“Rather than holding a grudge, if children are able to forgive others, there will be peace in their hearts, as well as in the hearts of those who harm them. Without learning forgiveness, the meaning of their lives and the purpose of their being born human – to bring peace to themselves, to their families and to other people in the world – will be lost.

“Also, if instead of forgiving those who harm them your children return the harm, not only will the person who harmed them want to harm them back, so too will that person’s family and friends. And due to that negative karma of retaliating, in the future, your children will be harmed and even killed for five hundred lifetimes by that same person in different forms. In this way, the suffering will go on and on without end. On the other hand, by forgiving those who harm them, your children won’t harm others, nor will you, the other members of your family and your friends. Therefore, so many people will be saved from creating negative karma.

“I once saw an interview on television with a woman in the United States whose young daughter had been kidnapped, raped and killed by a man. Even though she wasn’t a Buddhist, she said that she didn’t want to kill the man and instead forgave him. This amazing ability to forgive him came from her incredibly good heart. Another man who had been shot six times also said, when interviewed, that he didn’t want to kill the man who had shot him. He didn’t even want that man to go to prison! He too didn’t seem to be a Buddhist but he had a very good heart and was very kind. Because of their good hearts, these two people were able to experience so much mental peace and happiness in this very life. You should try to be like them and also teach your children how to be like them.”

Find the complete Joyful Parents, Successful Children on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/joyful-parents-successful-children

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.

Message from Ven Roger Kunsang, assistant to Lama Zopa Rinpoche and CEO of FPMT Inc :

“Dear Friends,
This year seems especially important for all Rinpoche’s students to come together in some way to offer practice and prayers for Rinpoche’s long and healthy life. When I asked Khadro-la for her observation, Khadro-la answered with a deep concern and wish that all the students in all the centers, projects and services come together in some way and offer a long life puja to Rinpoche, as well as perform 100,000 tsog offerings.

Khadro-la went on to explain how very important it is for Rinpoche to be present in this world for a long time, teaching and benefiting sentient beings in many different ways. Khadro-la talked about Rinpoche’s many special qualities, impressing how fortunate we are to have Rinpoche with us, guiding us in so many ways.

Please everyone join the Long Life Puja, participate in whatever way you can.”

The Official Long Life Puja on behalf of the entire FPMT will be offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Amitabha Buddhist Centre in Singapore on Sunday, March 13^th (as part of Rinpoche’s teaching event there). The puja will start at 9am Singapore time. 

During the long life puja Rinpoche will be requested to give teachings on lojong (thought transformation).  These teachings and the long life puja will be livestreamed so that all can participate live (or by video later).

How You Can Participate:
Help your center to offer prayers and practices for the health and long life of Lama Zopa Rinpoche with a long life puja, and by performing 100,000 tsog offerings with Lama Chopa.

Donations to the Lama Zopa Rinpoche Long Life Puja Fund are welcome.

More Information for FPMT Centers, Projects, Services and Study Groups

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Khadro-la (Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drönme), South India, January 2016. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching in his cave at Lawudo, Nepal, April 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

In early April 2015, Lama Zopa Rinpoche visited Lawudo, near Mount Everest in Nepal’s Solu Khumbu region, which was the home of his previous incarnation known as the Lawudo Lama. During the visit, Rinpoche taught in the meditation cave of the Lawudo Lama. Long-time student Bill Kane recorded Rinpoche in his cave and has posted the video on YouTube. Rinpoche, who was born not far from Lawudo, talks about his early days.

Watch the video: “Lama Zopa Rinpoche: Autobiography in the Lawudo Cave”:
https://youtu.be/xphlJ0iQBzk

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 a restaurant near Sera Monastery, India, December 2015. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

While eating lunch on Monday, January 11, Lama Zopa Rinpoche was looking at Ven. Roger Kunsang’s mobile phone when a notification arrived with the news that English musician David Bowie had died. So Rinpoche read the news notification and proceeded to do prayers for David Bowie in the restaurant.

The pop star, who was 69 when he died, had had early contact with Tibetan Buddhism in London in the 1960s. Chime Rinpoche has shared a video remembrance of Bowie coming to meet him.

In addition, Rinpoche recently found out that American student Bob Brintz, who had ALS, had passed away several months earlier. When Bob first contacted Rinpoche, he was paralyzed and unable to speak because of his illness and communicated by blinking. Bob, however, still took refuge and bodhisattvas vows with Rinpoche over Skype. Bob wrote about his Dharma practice in the Mandala article “I Will Be Paralyzed and Happy.”

Rinpoche wanted both of these stories to be shared in a blog.

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 Lama Chöpa puja at Kopan House, Sera Monastery, India, December 2015. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrote a student who was requesting Rinpoche as her guru:

“Begin your day with bodhichitta to make the life most meaningful and beneficial for sentient beings, thus transforming your life from iron into gold, not only with Dharma but with bodhichitta motivation.”

From “Request to Be a Guru and Life Practices,” published on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/request-be-guru-and-life-practices

Rinpoche has created the practice, formerly called Daily Meditation, to help students begin their day with bodhichitta:
https://shop.fpmt.org/How-to-Make-My-Lives-Wish-Fulfilling-The-Method-to-Transform-a-Suffering-Life-into-Happiness-eBook-PDF_p_3539.html

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 making offerings to Khyongla Rato Rinpoche after receiving oral transmissions from him, Osel Labrang, Sera Monastery, India, January 2016. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“… In Buddhism whatever suffering you experience is all temporary. It’s not forever,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche said in the advice “Purifying the Karma of Harming Others,” published on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. “Of course, in Christianity, if you are born in hell it is forever. However, in Buddhism, the mind is not oneness with delusion but is only temporarily obscured by delusion, therefore all the suffering and all the causes of suffering, the delusions, can be ceased. When the delusions are ceased then all the karma, which comes from delusion, is ceased. That’s how you receive everlasting happiness, the blissful state of peace for yourself, and not only that, by ceasing the subtle obscurations, you achieve sang gyä, or ‘buddhahood’ in Sanskrit, the total elimination of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations. To do this you have to actualize the right path.

“It’s like when you are sick. You have to take the right medicine to recover and not just anything that is called medicine. In the same way, to cease the causes of suffering – delusions and karma, the obscurations – you have to actualize the right path and not just anything that is called spiritual. For that, you have to first engage in listening to a qualified teacher, then reflection and meditation practice in order to actualize the meaning of the path in your heart. …”

You can read the complete advice “Purifying the Karma of Harming Others,” in Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book, on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/purifying-karma-harming-others

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 Khadro Namsel Drönme) with the new issue of Mandala, Osel Labrang, Sera Monastery, India, January 2016. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“Things appear as truly existent when we fail to analyze them, but when we do analyze them we can see that everything is created by our mind. There is nobody else who has come and created our problems for us – ‘I’m creating your problems’ – they are all created by our mind. We are the creator,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches in “The Room Before It Is Named,” published in the latest issue of Mandala, January-June 2016.

“That is why in his teachings the Buddha said,

You are your own enemy.
And your own guide.
You are the creator of your own suffering.
And you are the creator of your own happiness.

“As I have mentioned, we are the creator of our day-to-day life’s problems, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second, and we are also the creator of our day-to-day life’s happiness, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second. We need to go beyond this life, however, to past and future lives. We have been born as a human being this time, but we are also the creator of all our past and future states, whether as a hell being or a god or whatever. Just as we are the creator of our own samsara, we are also the creator of our own nirvana – the blissful state of peace for ourselves, freedom from the oceans of samsaric suffering – and our own ultimate happiness, the total elimination of all obscurations and the completion of all realizations, the peerless happiness of enlightenment.

“Everything depends on our mind. Everything, whatever we want, is in our hands. If we don’t want nirvana, if we want samsara, it’s in our hands. If we don’t want enlightenment, if we want hell, it’s in our hands. If we want happiness instead of problems, it’s in our hands; it’s all up to us. It depends on how we use our mind. With our body and speech we do actions that lead to happiness or problems, but it all depends on the creator, our own mind. …”

You can read the entire teaching “The Room Before It Is Named” in the new issue of Mandala available through the FPMT Foundation Store or as a benefit of the Friends of FPMT program.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave this teaching at Jamyang Buddhist Centre, London, UK, July 11, 2014. It has been edited by Gordon McDougall for a forthcoming book based on Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings in Leeds and London in 2014, which will be published by the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive (lamayeshe.com).

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Kopan House, Sera Monastery, India, January 1, 2016.
Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave a teaching to hundreds of Sangha and lay students at Kopan House at Sera Monastery in India on the evening of January 1. The Jangchup Lamrim teachings with His Holiness the Dalai Lama had concluded, completing a four-year teaching series with His Holiness on the 18 Great Stages of the Path Commentaries. Earlier on New Year’s Day, there was a long life puja for His Holiness at Tashi Lhunpo Monastery. 

Rinpoche has been staying at Osel Labrang at Sera Monastery during the 2015 Jangchup Lamrim teachings. During this time, he has been giving advice and teachings to many groups of students from various FPMT centers around the world in addition to Kopan monks studying at Sera and also to Sherpas and local Tibetans. 

His Holiness gave a talk to Westerners attending the Jangchup Lamrim on December 28, a video of the talk as well as news and photos of His Holiness are available on DalaiLama.com.

Learn more about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche and his beneficial activities by visiting Rinpoche’s webpage on FPMT.org, where you will find links to Rinpoche’s schedule, new advice, recent video, photos and more.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche doing korwa around 1,000 buddhas at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, December 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“If the mind has sunk down and it is difficult to practice, then you must meditate on death and impermanence. That is very important. It takes care of so many problems, solves everything. It cuts attachment to people, places, and things. You stop clinging,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche advised a student who felt distracted in his practice.

“If you think that you are going to die today then you won’t waste time, you will make sure that you practice, that you do your meditation. Thinking about impermanence and death helps to not get caught up by attachment. It helps to calm the mind. It cuts through the mind getting distracted by external objects, which wastes so much time. When the mind gets distracted, it doesn’t allow you to meditate on guru devotion or do your practice, so one hour, one day, one week goes past like this, completely wasted. Thinking you are going to die today also helps to develop compassion for sentient beings.

“Reflect on impermanence and death thinking, ‘I am going to die today, even this hour, even this minute.’ It is very powerful and takes care of so many things, so many problems are solved. Even if you are angry with somebody, you will see there isn’t any point continuing to be angry because you might die soon.

“So, think about death, the suffering of the lower realms, and the nature of samsara. Also, think about the kindness of sentient beings and how much they are suffering. Think: ‘I am responsible for freeing them from suffering and bringing them to enlightenment.’ Then, depending on whatever delusion is arising, meditate on emptiness or on the three principles of the path.”

From “Cutting Distractions to Practice,” posted in “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book”:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/lama-zopa-rinpoches-online-advice-book

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.