Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice

One of hundreds of buddha statues at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington, US, July 2015. Photo by Chris Majors.

A student was going through relationship problems and Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered some advice on how to think while experiencing them:

All the problems are very good because they purify negative karma accumulated in the past. All those difficulties and problems in your life purify past very heavy negative karmas collected in many past lifetimes. And, by purifying those, you will experience much happiness in the future like the sun shining. So, it’s positive.

Remember, you received so many teachings for a long time, and especially on Chöd practice. Chöd should be not just chanting, but practice, especially dealing with all these problems that you are experiencing, difficulties you can utilize as the quickest way to achieve enlightenment for yourself and then free the numberless sentient beings from oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to peerless happiness, the state of omniscience. 

Should even all the beings of the three realms without exception
Become angry at me, humiliate, criticize, threaten, or even kill me,
I seek your blessings not to be agitated, but to complete the perfection of patience
That works for their benefit in response to their harm.

There are also some teachings on patience I have given at Root Institute I will send you.

The essence is what is explained in Lama Chöpa:

Even if the environment and beings are filled with the fruits of negativity,
And unwished for sufferings pour down like rain,
I seek your blessings to take these miserable conditions as a path
By seeing them as causes to exhaust the results of my negative karma.

Please take time to think of the meaning.

Scribed by Ven. Sarah Thresher, Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, March 2015. Edited by Mandala for inclusion on FPMT.org.

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.

Hundreds of tsa-tsas at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington, US, June 2015. Photo by Chris Majors.

A student completed Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice of accumulating 200,000 Vajrasattva mantras and wrote Rinpoche to let him know. Rinpoche responded with thanks and teachings on the power of bodhichitta:

My very dear, most precious, most kind, wish-fullfilling one,

Thank you a billion, million, zillion times for following my advice and doing a 200,000-Vajrasattva retreat and for now doing OM MANI PADME HUM. I’m sure that you must be doing it with a bodhichitta motivation to free sentient beings – numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, suras and auras – from oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to the state of omniscience, sangye, elimination of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations. In that case, with each OM MANI PADME HUM and Vajrasattva mantra, you are purifying the obscurations created over beginningless rebirths and collecting more than skies of merit. 

Lama Atisha said in the Lamp of the Path to Enlightenment, quoting the Sutra Requested by Pachin [verses 16-17]:

“If somebody offers buddha fields, buddha worlds, equaling the sand grains of the river Ganga (here, ‘equaling the number of sand grains of the river Ganga,’ when it talks about the benefits of bodhichitta, ‘the river Ganga’ doesn’t mean the Indian river Ganga, it means the Pacific Ocean, the sand grains of the Pacific Ocean) filled up with the seven different jewels like gold, diamonds, sapphires, etc., and offers that to the buddhas, but then somebody puts the palms together at the heart and simply generates bodhichitta, this offering is greater and it has no limit.” 

What it is saying is, for example, if you offer buddha worlds filled with the seven different jewels equal to the number of sand grains in your hand, even that merit is beyond our understanding. We can’t figure that merit out. That is unbelievable, unbelievable – most unbelievable merit. Now, here, it is talking about buddha worlds equaling the number of sand grains of the Pacific Ocean filled up with seven different jewels, so there’s no way we can understand the merit. It’s amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing.

Now, somebody simply puts their hands at the heart and thinks: “May I achieve full enlightenment in order to free all the sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to a state of omniscience.” This creates more than skies of merit – much, much, much, greater than the previous example. The merit from the previous example becomes very small by comparison, even though it’s beyond our conception. 

Therefore, you have so much to rejoice about in this life.

Thank you so much,

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

Scribed by Ven. Sarah Thresher, Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, March 2015. Edited by Mandala for inclusion on FPMT.org.

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 giving advice to students at the Copenhagen airport, Denmark, July 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

On July 25, Ven. Roger Kunsang shared on his Twitter page this from Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who was teaching in Copenhagen, Denmark, at an event organized by Tong-nyi Nying-je Ling:

Lama Zopa; you know so much but you make one mistake that cheats you from making your life meaningful, u don’t think of your own death.

High quality videos of Rinpoche’s teachings in Copenhagen will be made available on the FPMT.org:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/

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.

Medicine Buddha statue at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington, US, June 2015. Photo by Chris Majors.

“Without the self-cherishing thought, if we experience AIDS, cancer or any heavy disease, we can use this disease to become a great, quick, very powerful purification,” encourages Lama Zopa Rinpoche in Cutting the Root of Samsara, the third volume in a Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive series drawn from the 24th Kopan course in 1991. “We can experience this disease in order to benefit all sentient beings. It becomes a very powerful, very quick way to finish the work of purifying the obscurations and a quick way to finish the work of accumulating extensive merit. As we are experiencing the disease for the sake of all sentient beings, even in each second we are accumulating infinite merit. So experiencing these diseases without the self-cherishing thought becomes the quick path to enlightenment, like practicing tantra. It’s like doing many hundreds of thousands of Vajrasattva retreats, like doing many hundreds of thousands of prostrations with the Thrity-five Buddhas’ names, like doing many hundreds of thousands of preliminary practices.

“When we experience this disease on behalf of other sentient beings, without the self-cherishing thought, then there will be great compassion, bodhichitta, for other sentient beings. Therefore, it becomes incredibly meaningful, worthwhile, to experience. It’s the means of quickly purifying, very powerfully purifying, and a quick way to accumulate extensive merit in each second. Like this, it’s a quick way to achieve enlightenment and to liberate sentient beings.

“The whole experience becomes an incredible means. Even if we have to experience this disease for a hundred years, for a thousand years, even if we have to live our whole life with this heavy disease, it becomes a hundred-year retreat, a thousand-year retreat – however long we have the disease. It becomes a very meaningful retreat.”

Find Cutting the Root of Samsara on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/shop/cutting-root-samsara-ebook

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.

One of hundreds of buddha statues in Lama Zopa Rinopche’s altar room at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington, US, July 2015. Photo by Chris Majors.

A student asked Lama Zopa Rinpoche a question:

I’m doing my best for my parents and family at this juncture, but we’re going through a very difficult time now. My dad’s business failed and has since chalked up a huge debt. He can’t afford to pay the debt; anytime now, once the bank seizes the property, we’ll be homeless. They are already in their late 60s, turning 70. I don’t think they can face the failure and take it in stride. I’m so sad and stressed out that I can’t do much for them. I’m watching over them for fear that they have suicidal thoughts.

Rinpoche responded:

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

I got your emails. If you tell your father that there is no need to commit suicide, that I dedicate all my merits to him and to the family, that’s like money, good karma, good luck. He should read, if he can, the Vajra Cutter Sutra three times. Also, I have made prayers. If you can, pass that message to your father, even though he doesn’t like Buddhism or Buddhists. But just pass along the message.

Courage is so important. Committing suicide when some problem comes and you don’t know how to deal with it comes from mental exaggeration. That’s a very ignorant thought that does not think about the next life, that does not allow one to think of the next life. There is continuation of consciousness. Even though the body stops, there’s a continuation of consciousness. Because we are born with suffering, that means there was life before this one. There was life before and this is the result of that life. There was suffering then, so there is suffering now. If the previous life were free from suffering, the oceans of samsaric suffering and their causes – delusion and karma – then in this life there would be no suffering, only ultimate happiness. So the suffering from beginningless lives goes back like this. 

If it’s 100 percent certain you are going to go to a pure land or even a perfect human rebirth in the next life, it’s okay to die. But mostly we go to the hells, hungry ghost realm, or animal realm. The suffering there would be the greatest suffering. For example, compared to one small spark of hell fire – to describe how hot it is if it were up here – the entirety of fire from the human world put together, that hotness, is like falling snow or air conditioning. This is just an example of lower realm suffering, especially the hells. Wow, wow, wow, wow; you can’t imagine, you can’t imagine; you can’t imagine. How unbelievable it would be if you were born not in a major hell, but in a secondary one, the hell realm in lava. 

So committing suicide is like deceiving yourself to immediately join with the heaviest suffering of the hells after this life. This life – even if you have those failures that are believed in in the West, that are made so much by attachment and delusion – is incredible peace. Committing suicide is like completely deceiving yourself with ignorance. Whenever suicidal thoughts come, the remedy is to think of reincarnation, the continuation of life.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

Scribed by Ven. Sarah Thresher, Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, February 2015. Edited by Mandala for inclusion on FPMT.org.

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.

View at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington, US, June 2015. Photo by Chris Majors.

“… [T]he obscurations are temporary. No matter how much heavy negative karma we have created, it’s temporary. No matter how much we have live an evil life, that is also temporary. No matter how much depression we are experiencing, how much very heavy disease we are going through – very terrifying sicknesses even for our whole life – no matter how many relationship problems we have, even if everybody – our family, the people inside our home and those outside, everybody – dislikes us, none of these things are permanent,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches in Cutting the Root of Samsara, the third volume in a Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive series drawn from the 24th Kopan course in 1991. “They are all temporary. Even if we are going through a lot of life difficulties, failure in business and so forth, going through much hardships in life, where nothing succeeds, also that is not permanent. It’s not something that happens all the time. It’s just for the time being. So all these are temporary.

“A white cloth that is dirty is not oneness with the dirt; it’s temporarily obscured by the dirt. Therefore, there’s a possibility to clean the cloth with water, soap and so forth, so that the white cloth can be separated from the dirt, so that it can become clean. Similarly, the mirror is not oneness with the dirt. The dirt that covers the mirror is temporary. Because the nature of the mirror is not oneness with dirt, therefore, as with the cloth, the dirt can be separated away from the mirror, leaving it clean, without having dirt on it.

“This is similar to the clear light nature of the mind, that which is buddha nature, buddha essence, buddha potential or the race of the buddha. The clear light nature of the mind is pure because it is not mixed with the stains of mind. It is not oneness with the obscurations. It is not oneness with ignorance; it is not oneness with anger; it is not oneness with attachment. The nature of the mind that is the clear light is pure, ‘pure’ in that sense.”

Find Cutting the Root of Samsara on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/shop/cutting-root-samsara-ebook

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 giving Medicine Buddha initiation in Copenhagen, Denmark, July 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

On July 24, Ven. Roger Kunsang shared on his Twitter page this from Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who was teaching in Copenhagen, Denmark, at an event organized by Tong-nyi Nying-je Ling:

Lama Zopa, Copenhagen; we go to school, we work, we do so much for this “I” yet don’t know anything about this “I”!

Rinpoche’s teaching on Saturday, July 25, in Copenhagen is scheduled to be webcast live at 7 p.m. local time (UTC+2) on FPMT’s Livestream page:
http://livestream.com/FPMT/DM2015

High quality videos of Rinpoche’s teachings in Copenhagen and from Maitreya Instituut in the Netherlands are being made available on the FPMT.org:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/

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, De-Tong Ling Retreat Centre, Kangaroo Island, Australia, May 2015. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

Several photo albums featuring Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s activities around the world have been posted to FPMT.org for students and supporters to look at and enjoy. 

Rinpoche toured Australia during May and June 2015, visiting several FPMT centers including De-Tong Ling Retreat Centre, Buddha House and Vajrayana Institute. Rinpoche also attended the teachings with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in June that were in the Blue Mountains near Sydney. 

Earlier in May, Rinpoche visited Mahamudra Centre, Chandrakirti Centre and Dorje Chang Institute in New Zealand. While there, Rinpoche also blessed the water and beings living in the ocean and performed a puja on Mt. Taranaki in Egmont National Park.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche doing puja at Mt. Taranaki, New Zealand, May 2015. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche was present to help Kopan Monastery through the immediate response to the devastating earthquake that struck Nepal in April 2015. This album not only shows Rinpoche’s compassionate response to the disaster, but chronicles some of the hard work carried out by Kopan’s nuns and monks to provide emergency relief. Just prior to the earthquake, Rinpoche visited Lawudo in the Solu Khumbu region of Nepal, where his previous incarnation meditated. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche led prayers and gave oral transmissions to young monks and Western visitors after the earthquake, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, April 2015. Photo by Ven. Sarah Thresher

Find more photo albums of Lama Zopa Rinpoche on 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.

Lama Zopa Rinopche feeding and blessing goats kept by Paula and Matti de Wijs (picture on right), Amsterdam, Netherlands, July 2015. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

“The I is one; others are numberless,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche reminds students in Cutting the Root of Samsara, Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive’s third volume in a series drawn from the 24th Kopan course in 1991. “There are numberless sentient beings and every one of them is so important and so precious, so kind. Our happiness comes from them, therefore every one of them is so precious. Every one of them is so precious. Just as we think of ourselves as so precious, everyone is so precious like this, more precious than even ourselves. The I is one. We ourselves are just one, so compared to the numberless, precious, kind sentient beings, this I itself, which is one, is completely lost. Even by number, without thinking of the kindness, this one I is completely lost. This I is completely lost. It’s nothing. It’s just like one atom, this one atom is completely lost. It’s nothing. When we compare the numberless sentient beings, this I is nothing. Compared to how important, how precious they are, it is nothing.

“Therefore, anything other than working for sentient beings is meaningless. It’s empty. Anything other than working for sentient beings is empty, meaningless. Therefore think, ‘In my life, there’s nothing to work for other than sentient beings. In my life, there’s nobody to work for other than sentient beings. There’s nobody to cherish in my life other than sentient beings. What sentient beings want is happiness and they don’t want suffering. The happiness they need is the highest happiness, enlightenment. Therefore, I must lead them to full enlightenment. For that I need to achieve full enlightenment myself first. That depends on actualizing the path and that depends on protecting my karma, on practicing morality, not creating obstacles to the path, generating the path.’ …”

Find Cutting the Root of Samsara on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/shop/cutting-root-samsara-ebook

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 the beginning of a teaching at Maitreya Instituut, Netherlands, July 2015. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

A long life puja will be offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the conclusion of the teaching and initiation series at Maitreya Instituut in the Netherlands on Chokhor Duchen (Wheel Turning Day), which is on Monday, July 20. The event is scheduled to begin in the morning local time (GMT+2). 

Visit FPMT’s Livestream page for the event to find updates and watch the live webcast as well as recorded teachings: http://livestream.com/FPMT/NL2015

High quality videos of the Maitreya Instituut teachings are being made available on the FPMT.org:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/lama-zopa-rinpoche-teachings-in-netherlands-2015-2/

Links to download the translation of the teachings into French and Spanish in MP3 audio format are also being posted at the above link.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche travels next to Denmark where he will be giving the Medicine Buddha initiation on July 24-25. For more on Rinpoche’s schedule: 
https://fpmt.org/teachers/zopa/schedule/

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 Maitreya Instituut, Loenen, Netherlands, July 2015. Photo by Jan-Paul Kool.

“If the self-cherishing thought, the ego, is strong, then the attachment clinging to this life also becomes very strong. The stronger the attachment is, the easier anger arises,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches in Cutting the Root of Samsara, the third volume in the four-volume ebook series of Rinpoche’s teachings from the 1991 Kopan Course and featured in the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive’s June E-letter.

“The happiness of the I becomes so important. In the view of the self-cherishing thought, the I becomes so important, so precious, therefore, my happiness becomes very important. My happiness and this life’s happiness become very important.

“Anybody who does a small thing disturbs us so much. Even birds making a noise when we want to meditate or when we want quiet to have a sleep – even a dog or a bird making a noise outside, or somebody talking – even a small thing becomes a big disturbance. Even if the decoration of the house is slightly wrong in our view, how things are put on the table, how things are decorated – even just a little bit in the wrong way according to our point of view, it’s the wrong way – this becomes very important. There are things in the house put in a slightly different place than where we’d like them. The other person puts them in this place where we don’t want them to be, moving them from there, putting them here, here. It’s supposed to be there, but she moved it here. It’s supposed to be that way because we put it that way. Whatever it is.

“Even a tiny mouse just going on the roof, making a little noise, just some noise, something we’re just able to hear, even a rat just quickly passing through the room. While we’re not expecting rats to run, it comes through. If we expected it, there’d be no problem. If we expected it, if we opened our mind toward rats, there’d be no problem. But if our mind is closed toward the rat, when we’re not expecting it, when we’re not wishing it, then the rat just quickly runs through, close to us, it becomes incredibly terrifying. Terrifying. Incredibly shocking. A big shock. There’s a rat in the house! A big shock! Immediately we want to move into another room or into another hotel where there’s no rat.

“The stronger the self-cherishing thought is, the stronger the attachment to this life, so the worldly concern is there. In the view of that mind, the I becomes so important, my happiness becomes so important. This life’s happiness becomes so important, so when there’s a small disturbance, which is such nonsense to be worried about, it becomes a big upset. …”

Read the entire excerpt from Cutting the Root of Samsara in the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive June E-letter: https://www.lamayeshe.com/index.php?sect=article&id=1061

You can watch the live webcast of Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Maitreya Instituut and find schedule updates on FPMT’s Livestream page: http://livestream.com/FPMT/NL2015

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.