Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice

Screenshot of “Real Buddhism Is Not to Harm Others”

“Buddha is like the doctor because, as I’ve explained, we have disease and he has medicine,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches in a new video on FPMT’s YouTube channel. “Dharma is like the medicine. The Sangha is like the nurse. When you take refuge in the Dharma, when you rely on Dharma, what you have to abandon is harming others, even by death. Through understanding, when you take the refuge ceremony, when you take refuge in Dharma, rely on Dharma – try not to harm yourself, try not to harm others. …”

Watch “Real Buddhism Is to Not Harm Others” on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boBcjQLcs1E

You can watch more video clips of Lama Zopa Rinpoche on FPMT’s YouTube page: http://bit.ly/fpmt-youtube

For longer videos of Rinpoche teaching, visit: http://bit.ly/rinpoche-available-now

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 Mahabodhi Stupa, Bodhgaya, India, February 2015. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

“It is extremely important to pay attention to patience in everyday life,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche said in “The Most Important Practice of Patience,” a teaching made available as part of Mandala‘s July-December 2015 online content. “Not only we who want to practice lam-rim – the graduated path to enlightenment – but even nonbelievers need to practice patience so that their relationships with their wives, parents, friends, even with outside relationships, can last longer.

“Even nonbelievers, of course, would like happiness and long-lasting relationships in the family. So if you don’t practice patience and compassion and the good heart, and don’t try to control the mind of desire, then relationships don’t last. You become enemies to each other. Before the other person becomes an enemy, you become enemy to that person. There can be danger like that.

“It’s an incredibly important education and a good quality for human life, even if you don’t believe in karma or reincarnation, practicing patience is so, so, so important. You don’t learn that in school; you don’t learn that in university. But it’s the most important lesson, which brings happiness and peace, good and warm relationships, and long-lasting happiness in relationships.

“For people who are practicing Dharma, lam-rim, then there’s no question that it’s even more important – this is the most important practice. …”

Learn Dharma strategies for developing patience: 

https://fpmt.org/mandala/archives/mandala-for-2015/july/the-most-important-practice-of-patience/

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.

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

“If we do some profound scientific analysis, some inner scientific analysis, we can see how much we believe in this totally real I that actually does not exist,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche says in a teaching in the just published Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive July 2015 E-letter. “It appears to be real from its own side, we believe it to be real one hundred percent, but it is not there. By doing this inner scientific analysis, this meditation, we can come to see this very subtle point, the nonexistence of this ‘real’ I.

” … Our whole life is spent afraid of something happening to this I, to this real I that appears from there. We totally, a hundred percent believe it is real and we do everything we possibly can to protect this real I, which is not there. We see all the possibilities of being hurt. ‘This will make me sick. This will kill me. This will hurt me.’ We take every possible precaution to prevent this real I that doesn’t exist from being hurt.

“Determined to keep fit, we do hours of exercise every day, by jogging or working out on machines. There is a big industry making new types of machines for our real I to keep fit on. As soon as a new machine has been on the market a few months a new one comes out and our real I has to have it. Each machine makes us do it differently – from lying upside down to putting our head between our legs – and we are forced to buy new ones because the experts in advertisements convince us this new one is better.

“All this is done for our real I, for the I that appears real and we believe a hundred percent is truly there. Even exercising the body, doing many hundreds of push-ups, is for this real I. Everybody jogging, running and doing exercises is doing it so that this I does not get sick. They are protecting this I. They have injections to prevent diseases before they happen. They take every single precaution they can to protect this real I.

“If we were to meditate for just one day, analyzing, checking, going to a subtler level, we would see that this real I is not there! What appears as the real I, what we believe a hundred percent to be real, is not there. However, we don’t check and this labeling process goes on continuously. It has been going on since we were born and will continue up to death. …” 

Read Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive’s July 2015 E-letter and the complete teaching online.

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.

Offerings and scores of images of the 35 Buddhas of Confession in Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s room at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington, US, June 2015. Photo by Chris Majors.

A student wrote Lama Zopa Rinpoche:

You asked me to read an article about how to transform depression into the path and also to concentrate on purification practices like confession to the Thirty-five Buddhas. I did not faithfully do them every day. However, I would like to thank you as you told me my depression and sufferings are a result of purification, of me trying to do something about Dharma.

Since I took refuge, everything in my life has gone wrong: my relationships, my health and my ability to work. I woke up each day and was fearful, wondering how I could cope with another day. However, while all these problems were manifesting, I had incredible opportunities to do retreat and to meet with a lot of holy beings who guided me personally. I also had, and still have, the opportunity to study Dharma. The most important thing, I feel, is that I am glad that I did not give up my lama.

Now after all these years of things going wrong, I suddenly realized that I am happy that all these have happened. It became so clear that everything—friends, relatives, this world and even my body—are all sufferings. I don’t think this is renunciation, but at least now I am recovered from depression and have started to reclaim my life: to eat right, to sleep right, and to start to have the energy and mind to take care of my personal household matters and work hard. Anyway, I just want to thank you and tell you that I truly am happy that I had all of these sufferings. They groomed me for who I am now

Rinpoche responded:

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

Thank you very much for your kind letter and I’m so happy that you realized all the difficulties you have been through are positive.

Generally, the whole lam-rim is thought transformation, but there is thought transformation separate from the lam-rim. That thought transformation is when you utilize obstacles to practicing Dharma on the path to enlightenment–then you don’t have obstacles to practice Dharma! You use any difficulties like this for sentient beings to achieve enlightenment, not just temporary happiness and for yourself to achieve enlightenment. It’s unbelievable, most unbelievable and makes your life—even your death—most beneficial for sentient beings. This is what really we should practice.

The Kadampa Geshe Khamlungpa said among his advices: “This present small suffering being experienced purifies past negative karma (collected from beginingless past lives). Therefore, there will be happiness in the future. Therefore, rejoice in the suffering.” This means that experiencing suffering is very good, positive—that’s what he is saying. This is Kadampa Geshe Khamlungpa’s advice. So, all the usual complaints against you then are very positive.

Any praise, any good things are a cause for delusion to rise, so that’s no good and the opposite to renunciation. The bodhisattva Togme Sangpo has advised that whether you experience good or whether you experience bad, it’s all to use for enlightenment. It all depends on which label you chose to give. If you give a bad label to everything, everything becomes bad, becomes lung. So it’s very, very, very good that you took everything, that you understood everything as a way to achieve enlightenment. The way you think helps the mind to be more satisfied; everything brings peace of mind; everything becomes Dharma. That’s very wise; that’s REAL wise. Even for top political people in the world, I don’t think they know this. Take it as positive.

Thank you very much. Have a good 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.

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.