Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Choden Rinpoche in Taiwan, February 2013. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered Lama Chöpa tsog early Friday morning in Mexico, where he is leading retreat, after hearing the news that His Eminence Choden Rinpoche showed the aspect of passing away. Lama Zopa Rinpoche mentioned that others could do this practice themselves or at their Dharma centers, especially if they had a Dharma connection with Choden Rinpoche.  

Before showing the aspect of passing away, Choden Rinpoche himself advised a collection of prayers for his students to offer at this time.

You may also read a detailed description of the event of Choden Rinpoche’s transition, provided by Ven. Tenzin Namdak, who is the primary English language contact for the Choden Rinpoche Committee at Sera Je Monastery. [Rebeca Cuan Corral provided a Spanish language translation of event of Choden Rinpoche’s transition.] You may also read a transcript of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s meeting with Choden Rinpoche on August 29, 2015, translated by Ven. Tenzin Gache of Sera IMI House as Sera Je Monastery. [Rebeca Cuan Corral’s Spanish language translation of the meeting.]

See “The Life of a Hidden Meditator: Choden Rinpoche” from Mandala July 2000 to read more about Choden Rinpoche’s experiences in Tibet at Sera Monastery and in Lhasa after 1959. The complete multi-part feature “The Life of a Hidden Meditator” is available as a PDF. You can also read more recent stories about Choden Rinpoche on FPMT.org.

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche giving long life initiation in Queens, New York, August 30, 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“[This year,] this life prepares for the happiness of our future lives, becoming useful rather than becoming a disturbance, harming our thousands and thousands of future lives,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche says in Creating the Causes of Happiness, the second volume in a Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive series drawn from the 24th Kopan course in 1991. “When we harm others we harm ourselves for many thousands of lives. It’s said in Nagarjuna’s teachings, Friendly Letter, that by cheating one sentient being, we ourselves are cheated for a thousand lifetimes by other sentient beings. In this way, this life becomes harmful to our many other, thousands and billions of lifetimes, becoming harmful rather than becoming beneficial and supporting, creating the cause of all those future lives’ happiness.

“So, when somebody gives us harm, to harm him back with a negative mind is completely the wrong solution, the wrong idea. To benefit him in return is the best but even if that’s not possible, at least do not harm him.”

Find Creating the Causes of Happiness on Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive: http://bit.ly/creating-the-causes-of-happiness.

Learn more about Lama Zopa Rinpoche, spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), and Rinpoche’s vision for a better world. Sign up to receive news and updates.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the retreat in Mexico, September 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang via Twitter.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is currently leading the “Essence of Nectar” lam-rim retreat, which runs September 5-12 in Mexico. So far at the retreat, Rinpoche has been giving teachings on renunciation.

“Attachment to the happiness of this life is like oil stuck on paper. It’s difficult to separate from it. You create suffering by your own mind. It’s not created by someone else. Any action of body, speech and mind done with that attachment becomes a non-virtuous, negative action,” Rinpoche taught on September 7.

And also, “When you get attachment to something and then you see the nature of impermanence, you see the attachment as ugly. There is one particular smell of death — a terrible smell. If you are attached to someone’s body, think of that; then you won’t be attached.”

Khamlungpa Center is hosting the retreat, which is taking place at a retreat center about an hour’s drive from Guadalajara, Jalisco, in central western Mexico.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche arriving at the airport in Guadalajara, Mexico, September 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. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and FPMT via email, sign up to FPMT News.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche doing an incense puja for those who are sick on his first day in Mexico, where Rinpoche is currently leading retreat, September 6, 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“Even if you owned a pile of diamonds the size of this earth, the peace you’d get from that would be minimal and could never compare with that afforded by inner development,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche says in “In Search of a Meaningful Life” in Teachings from Tibet, an updated and reprinted collection of lineage master teachings from Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. “No matter how many jewels you own, you’re still beset by mental problems such as anger, attachment and so forth. If somebody insults you, for example, you immediately get angry and start to think of ways to harm, insult or hurt that person.

“If you are a person of inner development, you react quite differently. You think, ‘How would I feel if he got angry with me, insulted me and hurt my mind? I’d be really upset and unhappy. Therefore, I shouldn’t be negative toward him. If I get angry and insult him, he’ll get terribly upset and unhappy, just as I would in the same situation. How can I do that to him?’ This is the way you should think; this is the way of inner development, the true path to peace.”

Find Teachings from Tibet on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive: https://www.lamayeshe.com/shop/teachings-tibet

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, New York, US, August 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

On August 24, Ven. Roger Kunsang shared on his Twitter page this brief thought from Lama Zopa Rinpoche with a photo of Rinpoche with a skeleton:

Lama Zopa: Death is here, remember Dharma!

You can find teachings and advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche on impermanence and death by visiting the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

Ven. Roger Kunsang, Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s assistant and CEO of FPMT Inc., shares Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent pith sayings on Ven. Roger’s Twitter page. (You can also read them on Ven. Roger’s Facebook page.)

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche blessing the Atlantic Ocean and all the creatures in it, New York, US, September 2015. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

“When I’m on a plane I sometimes observe the other passengers. They’re trapped there for many hours but still keep so busy,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche shares in The Perfect Human Rebirth: Freedom and Richness on the Path to Enlightenment, part of the FPMT Lineage Series from Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. “Each is in his or her own world, right there on the plane. They’re sitting there eating or reading or doing work, yet their minds seem to be somewhere else, busy trying to secure whatever piece of samsaric happiness they think of as ‘mine.’ They all seem so wrapped up in the meaningless affairs of this life. None of them seem to have the slightest idea of the difference between virtue and nonvirtue. No matter how well-dressed they are, no matter what delicious food they eat, to me they seem to be very uncomfortable, like they have some skin disease they need to scratch but can’t; they’re like a goat on a very steep mountain, unable to take one step forward because of the danger of falling over the cliff.

“The very sad thing is that this is exactly right. They are standing on a cliff, very close to slipping off. If samsaric happiness is so good, why aren’t they calm and relaxed, why are they so twitchy? I feel quite sad watching them, like watching a friend crossing a dangerous bridge but being unable to help.

“We need to see through the surface attraction of samsaric pleasure to the danger below; we need to see how it’s like honey on a razorblade. I remember once being inspired by watching a film on space travel – but it didn’t inspire me to travel in space; it inspired me to practice Dharma.”

Find The Perfect Human Rebirth: Freedom and Richness on the Path to Enlightenment on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive: http://bit.ly/perfect-human-rebirth

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 teaching during picnic in park on Long Island, New York, August 2015. Photo by Ven. Yangchen.

“Taking universal responsibility is the meaning of our own life,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche says in Creating the Causes of Happiness, the second volume in a Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive series drawn from the 24th Kopan course in 1991. 

“With loving kindness, thinking how kind and how precious our partner is, we think to repay the kindness. We’re here to repay the kindness. If we generate compassion and loving kindness, then there’s a purpose to be together, to free her from difficulties and to cause her happiness. This way, by being concerned for her, there’s a purpose. Then we can see a purpose. But when the object of life, the aim of life, is only for our own purpose, for our own happiness of this life, where there’s our own self-interest; when we think that way it becomes a big problem. When we think that way, we find a problem; but when we think the other way, thinking about others, when we generate those other thoughts, we don’t see a problem in life.

“Problems in life come from what kinds of concepts we have. With one concept we have problems in life; with another concept there are not problems in life. In that same day, that same hour, that same minute, this all depends on which kind of concept we follow. So you can see that whatever problem we have, even death and rebirth, even those things – everything – definitely comes from our own mind. There can never be a problem that is not dependent on our own mind, that came only from outside. There’s no such thing.”

Find Creating the Causes of Happiness on Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive: http://bit.ly/creating-the-causes-of-happiness.

Learn more about Lama Zopa Rinpoche, spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), and Rinpoche’s vision for a better world. Sign up to receive news and updates.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche arriving at a teaching in New York City, August 2015. Photo by Edward Sczudlo.

“If happiness depended on only material development, rich countries such as America would be very happy places,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche reflects in “In Search of a Meaningful Life” in Teachings from Tibet, an updated and reprinted collection of lineage master teachings from Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. “Many people try to follow the American way of life, thinking it will bring them happiness, but personally, I find greater peace in more spiritually minded countries such as India and Nepal. These are much happier countries, more peaceful for the mind. When I return to India after traveling in the West, it’s like coming home. There are so many differences. India is actually a very spiritual country and this makes a great difference to the mind.

“When you look at materialistic societies and the way people live, your own mind gets disturbed. The people there are increasingly busy, and new and different problems continually arise; they’re tense and nervous and have no time to relax. In India, you see people relaxing all over the place, but in the West, you pick up the vibration of the population’s agitated minds and finish up feeling nervous yourself. If happiness depended solely on external development, countries like Switzerland and America would be the most peaceful places on earth, with less quarreling, fighting and violence, but they’re not like that.”

Find Teachings from Tibet on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive: https://www.lamayeshe.com/shop/teachings-tibet

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 Richard Gere and members of New York’s Sherpa community after long life initiation, Queens, NY, August 30, 2015. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

On Sunday, August 30, Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave a Most Secret Hayagriva long life initiation for New York‘s Sherpa community. The event was organized by Ogmin Jangchub Sishu Tsogpa, the association of former Kopan Monastery monks and nuns living in New York, and held in the building owned by the United Sherpa Association in Queens. American actor Richard Gere also attended the event, which was the day before his birthday. He was offered cake and thanks by Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche thanking actor Richard Gere, Queens, New York, August 2015. Photo by Ven. Sherab.

During Rinpoche’s August visit to New York, he had quite a few visits with the former monks and nuns of Kopan living in New York. There was a large picnic with the Kopan community and other Tibetans and Sherpas in a park on Long Island mid-month. After the picnic, Rinpoche gave Dharma advice. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche giving Dharma advice during a picnic, Long Island, NY, August 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Rinpoche also had dinner with a group of former Kopan monks and nuns at a restaurant in Queens. The group gathers about once a month for a social dinner and to offer each other support and discuss things like helping those back in Nepal who were affected by the devastating earthquake. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche at dinner with former Kopan monks and nuns, Queens, New York. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche in a Yellow Cab in New York City, US, August 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“Wherever Rinpoche goes in New York City, there are always ex-Kopan monks in yellow cabs to take Rinpoche there,” shared Ven. Roger Kunsang, assistant to Rinpoche and CEO of FPMT. This is because many of the former monks living in New York drive cabs and Ven. Roger knows who to call to have one of them pick up Rinpoche.

Rinpoche also gave teachings and participated in other activities organized by Shantideva Meditation Center, the FPMT center in New York. We’ll have more on those events in the days to come.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche at picnic with former Kopan monastery monks and nuns and other Tibetans and Sherpas living in New York, August 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

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 teaching event at Tibet House with Ven. Sangpo Sherpa and Jennifer Kim, director of Shantideva Mediation Center, New York, NY, August 2015. Photo by Edward Sczudlo.

“We can also use the lightning analogy to explain emptiness in a very simple way,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche says in The Perfect Human Rebirth: Freedom and Richness on the Path to Enlightenment, part of the FPMT Lineage Series from Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. “Imagine we are walking on a road, unable to see anything. When it’s completely dark we don’t label anything because we can’t see anything. Then there is a flash of lightning. In the brief flash we see a tree and another person on the road. The two bases appear because of the sudden light and we label them ‘good,’ ‘bad,’ ‘ugly,’ this and that. Even during this short period attachment and aversion arise. As soon as there’s the appearance of the base, we label it.

“… We waste the precious time we have assigning positive and negative attributes to people and things they don’t in reality have, as so we set up patterns that feed our delusions and make our life miserable. Our ‘real’ friends, our ‘real’ enemies, the ‘real’ places we love and hate, the ‘real’ things we love and hate to do, when we die they will all disappear in a flash, the help and harm they gave us no longer there. Only the delusions we held onto concerning those objects remain as negative imprints on our mental consciousness to determine our next rebirth. So how pointless it is to cling to these delusions while we are alive. They seem so real now, while lit by the lightning flash, but they will be gone in an instant.”

Find The Perfect Human Rebirth: Freedom and Richness on the Path to Enlightenment on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive: http://bit.ly/perfect-human-rebirth

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 chatting with Khyongla Rato Rinpoche during oral transmissions, New Jersey, US, August 2015. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche traveled at the end of July 2015 to New York City, where he is spending the month of August. The primary reason for Rinpoche’s visit to New York was to receive oral transmissions from Khyongla Rato Rinpoche, a highly respected Gelug master and the founder of the Tibet Center in New York City. 

Over the years, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has received transmission from Khyongla Rato Rinpoche, who is 93 years old, most happening in India. But this time, Lama Zopa Rinpoche received oral transmissions over a period of three weeks, meeting with Khyongla Rato Rinpoche on most days for about three hours either in New York or New Jersey. During the first week of transmissions Khyongla Rato Rinpoche would come to the apartment where Lama Zopa Rinpoche was staying in the city. The following weeks, Lama Zopa Rinpoche would travel to New Jersey, where Khyongla Rato Rinpoche lives, to receive the transmissions.

According to Ven. Roger Kunsang, Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s assistant and CEO of FPMT, Khyongla Rato Rinpoche, while frail, is still able to move around and is quite sharp. “He’s very low-key and humble. He also has his own peculiar sense of humor,” Ven. Roger shared. “There was quite a lot of joking between Khyongla Rato Rinpoche and Lama Zopa Rinpoche during the visits.”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Khyongla Rato Rinpoche and Ven. Losang Sherab, New Jersey, US, August 2015. Photo by Nicholas Vreeland.

After the first week, Khen Rinpoche Nicholas Vreeland — who is the first Western abbot of a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in India, which is Rato Monastery — arrived from Singapore where he had been assisting with His Eminence Ling Rinpoche’s visit. Khen Rinpoche, who is a devoted, long-time student of Khyongla Rato Rinpoche, also received the oral transmissions. [See Mandala‘s “The ‘Monk with a Camera’: An Interview with Khen Rinpoche Nicholas Vreeland,” for more.] 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches at the Tibet House in New York City on Thursday, August 27, and Friday, August 28, at 7 p.m. The teachings on “Opening the Door to Liberation” are organized by Shantideva Meditation Center. For details, visit their website. 

Rinpoche is also giving a long life initiation of Most Secret Hayagriva at 10 a.m. on Sunday, August 30, at 41 – 01 75th Street, Elmhurst, New York. The event is organized by Ogmin Jangchub Sishu Tsogpa, the association of Kopan’s ex-monks and nuns in New York.

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche after guru puja organized by Shantideva Meditation Center, New York, New York, US, August 2015. Photo by Edward Sczudlo.

“Since we want only happiness and no suffering, it is extremely important for us to practice Dharma,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche says in “In Search of a Meaningful Life” in Teachings from Tibet, an updated and reprinted collection of lineage master teachings from Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

“Dharma is not chanting, doing rituals or wearing uniforms; it’s developing the mind, the inner factor. We have many different inner factors: negative ones, such as the unsubdued mind, ignorance, delusions and so forth; and positive ones, such as love, compassion, wisdom and the like. Dharma practice is the destruction of our negative mental factors and the cultivation of our positive ones.

“Linguistically, the word ‘dharma’ means ‘existent phenomenon,’ but when we say ‘the practice of Dharma’ or ‘holy Dharma,’ it means that which protects us from suffering. That is the meaning of the holy Dharma; that is the Dharma we should practice.”

Find Teachings from Tibet on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive: https://www.lamayeshe.com/shop/teachings-tibet

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.