Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice

Lama Zopa Rinpoche offering impromptu teaching to students in park, Moscow, Russia, June 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is teaching at Ganden Tendar Ling, the FPMT center in Moscow, Russia, beginning with a public talk “How to Find Peace” on June 30. 

You can watch Rinpoche teach live on FPMT’s Livestream page for the teachings in Russia:
http://livestream.com/FPMT/russia2015

Rinpoche’s teaching on July 1-2 on the “Three Principles of the Path” will also be webcast live. And the preliminary teachings before the Great Medicine Buddha initiation on July 3-5 are also tentatively planned to be webcast.

Details on the specific schedule for these teachings will be posted as soon as possbile on the FPMT Livestream page for the Russia events.

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 praying in front of a statue of Buddha at a Hindu holy place near Rajgir, India, March 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“… Problems in life arise because we look at things in a way that is opposite to reality, to the way things actually exist. This itself is the problem,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche said in a teaching on mind training in Switzerland in 1990, recently posted on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. “Our view, in which we believe, is a projection that is not the reality. We create our own view of everything: subject, action, object; friend, enemy, stranger; possessions, friends, our body. Our view is the opposite to reality, and this is our basic problem. Our way of looking at everything is the fundamental problem, and this then brings many other problems and much confusion into our life.

“Looking at everything in the wrong way, not being aware of the way in which things actually exist, is the basic cause of confusion in life. On the basis of this, all our many problems are built up, such as relationship problems—or, even if you live alone, you then have problems of loneliness and depression. Meditation is the real psychological method to stop wrong conceptions and to bring the correct way of thinking that leads to peace, happiness, and harmony. Meditation is a profound psychological technique. Meditating on lam-rim—on bodhichitta or emptiness, for example—is like destroying the root of a poisonous plant so that it cannot produce seeds and grow again and again, and cause a lot of harm. Or like eradicating the HIV-virus before it manifests as AIDS, in the form of more and more infections. Meditating on the path in order to achieve the fully awakened state of enlightenment is a profound psychological method.

“Meditation sounds like some kind of religious term, but actually it is the deepest practice of psychology. Meditation protects the mind from wrong ways of thinking and keeps it aware of reality. Meditation keeps the mind in method and wisdom. Method means loving kindness, compassion, and so forth. You keep your mind in a state of loving kindness by being aware of how others are kind and in a state of compassion by being aware of how others are suffering. Wisdom means being aware of reality. The practice of meditation is actually the best psychology. …”

You can read the complete teaching “Thought Transformation in Daily Life” at:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/thought-transformation-daily-life

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 chatting with Richard Gere, during His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s visit to the Blue Mountains, Australia, June 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has had a busy month of travel. Rinpoche visited and taught at several FPMT centers in Australia before traveling to Dharamsala, India, to attend the long life puja for His Holiness the Dalai Lama on June 21. The long life puja was part of a celebration of His Holiness’ 80th Birthday.

Rinpoche has now arrived in Russia, where he will be teaching at Ganden Tendar Ling in Moscow through July 6. From Russia, Rinpoche travels to The Netherlands, where he will teach at Maitreya Institute, Loenen.

You can watch Rinpoche’s teachings from Australia in June at:
http://livestream.com/FPMT/au2015

Rinpoche’s teachings from his visit to New Zealand in May are available on our Rinpoche Available Now page: 
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/

You can learn more about Rinpoche’s schedule at:
 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 with Khadro-la, Lama Yeshe’s room, Tushita Meditation Centre, Dharamsala, India, June 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche arrived in Dharamsala, India last week for the long life puja and celebration of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s 80th birthday. The long life puja was on June 21.

Before the events, Rinpoche met with Khadro-la (Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drönme) at Tushita Meditation Centre. During the visit, Rinpoche showed Khadro-la his implements for saving insects. Ven. Roger Kunsang shared that Khadro-la was really thrilled seeing the attention put into saving insects compassionately and thoughtfully. The insect are not only saved, but blessed by the mantras on the insect liberation tools.

The FPMT Foundation Store sells a slightly different cardstock version of these animal liberation tools. You can find advice from Rinpoche on insects on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

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 canine friend, Adelaide, Australia, May 2015. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

During a teaching in Florence, Italy, in 1990, Lama Zopa Rinpoche taught on tong-len and other topics. Here’s an excerpt from this teaching, recently published on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

“… Everyone wants happiness and does not want suffering. It is for this reason that some people spend their life doing retreat or studying the path, or going to school and then university to get a degree in order to find a job and have a comfortable, happy life without any problems. These things are done with the aim to have a happy life with wealth, power, reputation and so forth. Looking for happiness, you may sit in meditation in your house at certain times each day. However, when there is a problem in our life  we have to apply the real meditation, the real Dharma, the real spiritual practice. When we have a problem, that is the time we really have to use meditation. The purpose of doing all these things, sitting in meditation every day, is to help us when we meet difficulties in our life. It benefits us at that time.

“Now, problems don’t come from outside, but from your own mind. From your own side you have looked at the situation as a problem, so it appears to you as a problem. First you look at the situation as a problem, so it then appears to be a problem. How does this happen? You look at the situation as a problem by labeling it, ‘This is a problem.’ When you interpret the situation as a problem and then label it as such, your life situation appears to be a problem. Because you see it as difficult, it appears to be difficult. That is how the problem comes from your own mind. There is no external problem. You made up the problem.

“When you have a problem, for example, some disease, think of all the other people with much greater problems than you, with more serious diseases. By thinking of others with greater problems, you don’t feel so much depression and fear. You feel happier because you don’t have such a heavy disease as those others. Even if you are poor and cannot afford a luxurious, comfortable life, think of those who have a much harder life, who are dying of starvation. You then feel very fortunate that you don’t have such great problems. When you compare your situation with the problems of others like this, you feel happier. When you look only at your present problem, you think it is so great. Even though it is actually a small problem, you make it big. You think, ‘This is unbearable!’ and make it huge. In this way it makes you depressed, more and more unhappy, with more worry and fear. You can see that with an unskillful way of thinking there is unhappiness; with a skillful way of thinking, there is immediate happiness. So, your own mind creates the happiness; your own mind stops the worry, depression and so forth. With your own mind you can do that. …”

You can find the teaching “Taking the Suffering of Others” at:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/index.php?sect=article&id=1055&chid=2599#sthash.L3atZABj.dpuf

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Geshe Samten, the resident teacher at Vajrayana Institute, Sydney, Australia, June 2015. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave the following advice to a student who had written to him about having hypothyroidism and a food addiction and needing to loss weight.

“… If you want to benefit other sentient beings, to free them from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to peerless happiness and omniscient mind, then you have to reveal Dharma to them. So you need to learn Dharma and practice Dharma, and for that you need a long life and to be healthy, so don’t eat sugar. You know it is harming your health, so why do you eat sugar? That’s ridiculous. If possible, abandon sugar for awhile. If not, then at least cut it down to a very small amount. Make the amount of sugar very, very small or don’t eat it for some years.

“Then about meat, I would like to say, please reduce eating meat, as it does so much harm to others and even to one’s own body. This is not just belief, it’s now even accepted scientifically. If you can avoid meat, it’s so good. Wow, wow, wow! All the buddhas and bodhisattvas will be so happy with you, just as a mother loves her beloved child, cherishing her child so much. When her child does something good that makes the mother so unbelievable happy.

“So if possible, abandon meat or cut down eating meat. The conclusion is that if less people eat meat, that means more animals won’t suffer from being killed. That’s the benefit, so please think about this. Don’t think about the pleasure of eating [meat] without thinking about reincarnation, karma and the lower realms. Instead of just thinking about the pleasure of eating meat, think about the suffering of the animals when they are being killed, and think of yourself being at the butcher’s place, about to be killed. How does that feel? If you’re about to be killed, like the animals, how does that feel? Do you like that?

“So if you really think Dharma is to not harm sentient beings, then don’t eat meat, or at least eat very little. Not eating meat is OK. So many young people in the West don’t eat meat and are still healthy; they can supplement their diet with other things.  So many people [are vegetarian] now, young and old, and its increasing more and more. …”

In Rinpoche’s letter he also gave advice on taking tsog offerings and purification practices that can be done. You can read Rinpoche’s complete advice on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive: http://bit.ly/a-healthy-diet

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 and a cute canine friend, Adelaide, Australia, May 2015. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

On May 31, Ven. Roger Kunsang shared this from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings at Buddha House in Adelaide, Australia, on his Twitter page: 

Lama Zopa: The main thing for resolving problems is to stop thinking they come from outside, they come from inside … wrong way of thinking.

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.)

Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings at Buddha House and at several other Australian FPMT centers can be watched now on FPMT’s Livestream page.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at a Minh Dang Quang Temple, a Vietnamese temple in Sydney Western suburbs of Sydney, Australia, June 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrote this letter to a student who had just become a nun:

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

Thank you for your kind email, I am sorry for the long delay.

You becoming a nun is unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable … thank you a billion, zillion times. Thank you very much. Try to know the vows and live in the vows – that is the foundation for all the path to enlightenment. That is the basis for the bodhisattva vows and the bodhisattva vows are the foundation for the tantric vows. The bodhisattva vows are to achieve enlightenment for numberless sentient beings, to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to full enlightenment. The tantric vows are to achieve full enlightenment as quickly as possible, even in one lifetime in degenerate times, and so you can enjoy life. This is the way to make life most happy and beneficial for all sentient beings.

Thank you very 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.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama being greeted by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia, June 2015. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has been invited to attend the long life puja (tenshuk) for His Holiness the Dalai Lama in honor of His Holiness’ 80th birthday in Dharamsala, India, on June 21. The long life ceremony has been organized by the Gelug Tenshuk and Gratitude Celebration Organizing Committee with the Tibetan Government in Exlie and the Tibetan Do-med Association. 

As part of the Gratitude Celebration, the first ever international Gelug conference will follow the long life ceremony on June 23-24. The conference will be attended by the Gaden Tri Rinpoche, Jangtse Chöje Rinpoche, Sharpa Chöje Rinpoche, Samdhong Rinpoche, and present and former abbots of all the major Gelug monasteries and nunneries, as well as many other great masters, lamas, dignitaries and representatives from Gelug centers, nunneries and monasteries. 

As a result of Lama Zopa Rinpoche traveling to India, the following changes have been made to his Australia tour schedule:

• Rinpoche’s teachings at Kunsang Yeshe Retreat Centre on June 17-18 have been cancelled;
• The June 19 teaching on Karma has been rescheduled to June 14, 10 a.m.-noon at Minh Dang Quang Temple;
• The long life puja at Vajrayana Institute on June 21 has been cancelled.

Rinpoche’s teachings at Vajrayana Institute June 13-15 are unchanged and will be webcast live.

After Dharamsala, Rinpoche will resume his teaching tour in Russia with the scheduled public talk “How to Find Peace” on June 30 at Ganden Tendar Ling in Moscow.

For details, see Rinpoche’s schedule.

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 Lama Zopa Rinpoche News.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with attendants and FPMT Australia students in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, June 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings at Vajrayana Institute in Sydney, Australia, June 13-15 will be webcast LIVE on FPMT’s Livestream page:

• June 13: Teaching on “How to Apply Dharma in Daily Life,” Vajrayana Institute, scheduled 7 p.m. Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST)
• June 14: Teaching on “The Joy of Compassion,” Vajrayana Institute, scheduled 7 p.m. AEST
• June 15: motivation for White Mahakala initiation (tentative), Vajrayana Institute, scheduled 7 p.m. AEST

This past week, Rinpoche has been in the Blue Mountains, outside of Sydney, where His Holiness the Dalai Lama just concluded five days of teachings.

Higher quality recordings of all the teachings from Australia will be made available at a later date on FPMT’s Rinpoche Available Now page. Recordings of Rinpoche’s May 2015 teachings in New Zealand are now available.

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Lama Chopa Tsog offering in Buddha House, Australia, May 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

A student wrote that she had cancer that was removed, but the surgeon said it had spread. The doctor advised getting chemotherapy. The student requested advice from Rinpoche on what she should do. 

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

Sorry for the long delay. I checked your question and chemotherapy is very good. When you have treatment, every time when you take medicine, think that the purpose is to be able to benefit numberless sentient beings. This is what you should think even during normal times, whenever you do treatment or take medicine. That makes it – all the expenses – worthwhile.

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.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, De-Tong Ling Retreat Centre, Australia, May 2015. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

During a 1991 talk in Adelaide, Australia, Lama Zopa Rinpoche responded to a question about low self-esteem with a teaching on the nature of the mind. Here’s a short excerpt from this talk, published by the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive:

“… What is the mind? It is nothing other than what is merely imputed by the mind, by the thought. In other words, because of the reason that the base – this formless phenomenon that is clear and perceives objects – exists, mind is merely labeled by the thought, and believed in. Because of this, thought makes up the idea, the concept, the label, ‘mind,’ and then believes in what is merely imputed by thought. Therefore, what the mind is, is extremely subtle. It does not exist in the way it normally appears to us. In reality, the mind that exists does not exist in the way that it normally appears to us, in the way we normally apprehend it, as a real mind existing from its own side, an inherently existent mind. It is not that. 

“This formless phenomenon whose nature is clear and able to perceive objects, this is the base. Depending on this base, mind is labeled, so ‘mind’ is the label and that phenomenon is the base to be labeled. Therefore, the base and the label ‘mind’ have to be different; they cannot be one thing. There is no way that the base to be labeled and the label can be one. If this particular formless phenomenon that is clear and able to perceive objects were the label ‘mind,’ there would be no point in labeling mind. Why would you label ‘mind’? There is no reason to label ‘mind’ on the mind. This would become endless. You would label ‘mind’ on the mind, then you would have to label ‘mind’ on that mind, then again you would have to label ‘mind’ on that mind. It would become endless. There is no purpose in doing this.

“Generally, you apply a label to something that is not that. There is some purpose in doing this. For example, when you see your mother among a group of your relatives – your brother, sister, father, aunt, uncle, and so forth – what is the reason that makes you create the label ‘mother’? First you have to think about this. A reason comes in your mind before you make up the label ‘mother.’ Some reason makes you choose this particular label. …”

Read the entire teaching from Rinpoche at:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/ultimate-nature-mind

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 Lama Zopa Rinpoche News.