Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice

Elephant statue with mantras offering to Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, Bendigo, Australia, December 2014. Photo by Ven. Tenzin Namgyal.

While Lama Zopa Rinpoche was in the Bendigo-area for the CPMT 2014 meeting and the retreat that followed, he added mantras to statues of an elephant and a kangaroo and wrote text for many signs to be placed next to those statues and others. Ani Wy helped Rinpoche with the mantras on the elephant that is shared above.

The sign next to the large elephant offering flowers to the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion says:

If the merit of taking Refuge has form
even these three realms (desire, form, formless)
become a small container
The treasure of the water of the great ocean cannot be
counted by the handful

Even though I am an animal Elephant,
This is my most exciting happiest life in the world

In numberless eons this is the one opportunity
to make offerings and prostrations to the holy stupa
and all the numberless
Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, stupas and scriptures.

You human beings have a better form (body)
So you really have an amazing opportunity to
Benefit sentient beings.

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 decorated artwork, Bendigo, Australia, November 2014. Photo by Ven. Tenzin Namgyal.

After Lama Zopa Rinpoche manifested a stroke in 2011, he stayed in a hospital in Bendigo, Australia. While there Rinpoche bought a painting that was part of a fundraiser for the hospital. Rinpoche returned to Bendigo in September 2014 for the CPMT 2014 meeting and the retreat that followed. He stayed at Thubten Shedrup Ling through November 2014 and while there added mantras to the painting so it is of more benefit when people see it. 

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 at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, Italy, June 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

Beginning today, all posts to the many news blogs on FPMT.org are now being distributed together in one email! If you have signed up in the past to receive one of our blogs like “Lama Zopa Rinpoche News,” “FPMT News Around the World,” “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Schedule” “FPMT Charitable Project News,” “Education News,” or “Mandala Today” by email, you will now receive all posts from all of the blogs, digested into one free email per day via Mailchimp.* This streamlines our ability to keep you up to date with the many aspects of FPMT’s beneficial activities and our international community’s work to fulfill Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Vast Vision.

If you would like to sign up for this free service and receive one email from FPMT most days of the week, you can do so on any of our News pages, where it says “Get FPMT News delivered by email.” If receiving a daily email from FPMT becomes too much for your inbox, you can unsubscribe at any time by scrolling to the bottom of the email and clicking on the “Unsubscribe” link. 

This daily email of FPMT blogs is separate from our monthly FPMT eNewsletter, which highlights the activities and news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and the FPMT organization and comes to you only once a month. There is also the monthly FPMT Foundation Store Newsletter, which shares news of special offers, new practice items and Dharma gifts. If you’d like to receive either of these free newsletters, you can sign up here.

*For those already receiving the email, today’s will have more stories than usual due to this change. Most days will only contain about two new posts.

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Lama Zopa Rinpoche blesses rabbits at Osel Labrang, Bylakuppe, India, December 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“It’s very important not only to have human rights, caring for and supporting humans, but also to be helping animals.” – Lama Zopa Rinpoche, “Animal Welfare,” Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive

Read more “Advice for Non-harming” from Lama Zopa Rinpoche on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Choe Khor Sum Ling, Bangalore, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

After spending part of December at Gaden Monastery in Mundgod, Karnataka, in South India to attend the Jangchup Lamrim teachings with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lama Zopa Rinpoche traveled to Sera Je Monastery, where he stayed at Osel Labrang. Then Rinpoche traveled to Bangalore to visit the students of Choe Khor Sum Ling, which recently transitioned from a study group to a full FPMT center.

On January 9, Rinpoche begins a week-long set of teachings, organized by Choe Khor Sum Ling, starting with a public talk entitled “Transforming Problems into Happiness.” The rest of the week will center on a Heruka Five Deities initiation.

After Bangalore, Rinpoche will go to Tushita Mahayana Meditation Centre in Delhi to give a two-day teaching on how to apply Dharma in daily life. 

You can receive updates to Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s schedule by email by subscribing today.

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 speaking at 25th anniversary dinner at Amitabha Buddhist Centre, Singapore, November 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Amitabha Buddhist Centre (ABC) in Singapore spent the last year celebrating its 25th anniversary. At the end of November 2014, Lama Zopa Rinpoche visited ABC and attended a special anniversary dinner attended by more than 600 people. The dinner included a talk by Rinpoche as well as speeches and entertainment. Hup Cheng Tan, director of ABC, was one of the featured speakers and gave a history of the center and described how it had evolved up to the present, including the history of the seven-story building that houses the center.

The dinner’s program “honored Rinpoche’s involvement,” Ven.  Roger Kunsang told Mandala, “because Rinpoche had been so much a part of ABC’s development. … Rinpoche had felt that Dharma could be very strong in Singapore. And the evening highlighted Rinpoche’s role in its development.”

ABC is a very successful center. More than 200 people are attending ABC’s Basic Program taught by Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi, resident geshe at ABC and abbot of Kopan Monastery.

ABC also offered a long life puja for Lama Zopa Rinpoche, which was attended by about 1,000 people.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi (to the right of Rinpoche) and Sangha in Singapore, November 2014

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 after teaching in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, August 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrote a letter to a student’s mother in September 2013, describing the benefits of reciting OM MANI PADME HUM:

“I just arrived from Mongolia [in September 2013], where they did a 108 million mani retreat. There were more than 60 Westerners, mostly nuns, and many Mongolians, who did extremely well. They recited 108 million OM MANI PADME HUM mantras.

“This is incredible, unbelievable purification, purifying negative karma collected from beginningless time. This is the way to collect most extensive merits up to enlightenment and particularly to purify many negative karmas, disease and problems. Many difficult things that are not easy to get rid of can be purified with this mantra, and particularly we can develop compassion for all living beings – numberless hell beings, numberless preta beings, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless suras, numberless asuras and numberless intermediate state beings. That compassion for all beings is what makes us achieve peerless happiness up to enlightenment, to be able to do perfect works for others. …”

One of Rinpoche’s Vast Visions for FPMT is to sponsor 100,000 100-million mani retreats around the world. FPMT Mongolia is one of several FPMT centers currently working towards this Vast Vision. The Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund has helped sponsor the Mongolia retreats as well as many others.

You can read more advice about mantra recitations in “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book,” compiled by the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

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 in front of the stupa on the Harewood House estate, Leeds, UK, July 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

“Buddhism reveals the correct path to achieve happiness – all the happiness of future lives, especially ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara, and enlightenment – and all the realizations, and perfect cessation of all the mistakes and defilements of the mind,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrote to a new student.

“Not only that, with this achievement you are able to liberate numberless hell beings, preta beings, animals, human beings, sura beings, and asura beings.

“With this achievement you are able to have happiness in all future lives, and, a more important service than that, you are able to bring each and every single being, from each realm, to everlasting liberation and full enlightenment.

“This is the ultimate goal of our life, why we took rebirth. This is just an introduction for you.”

Read more “Advice for New Students” from Lama Zopa Rinpoche on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche on the beach blessing all sentient beings in the water, Italy, June 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

“… Do at least one lam-rim prayer every day, such as the ‘Foundation of All Good Qualities,’ ‘Calling the Guru from Afar’ (long version), the ‘Three Principles of the Path,’ etc.,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche advised an ex-monk who had stopped practicing and wrote Rinpoche wanting guidance. “You can change it each day, like having a different appetite for the lam-rim, so you don’t get bored. This is a very, very essential thing. However many million other preliminary practices you do, reciting at least one lam-rim prayer a day is the most important thing. Lam-rim is what makes one’s life meaningful; it is the path to enlightenment. So, reciting a lam-rim prayer is a direct meditation on the lam-rim. Just reading a lam-rim prayer, mindfully, relating it to your own life, is a direct meditation. Lam-rim is the essence. It has the whole path to enlightenment in it. So, reading mindfully becomes a direct meditation on the whole path, and it leaves positive imprints of the whole path to enlightenment on your mind, just within those few minutes.

“This is much more meaningful than reciting 100 million mantras. It is even more meaningful than seeing Buddha, because just seeing or even meeting Buddha directly doesn’t mean you will become enlightened, because you have to have the realizations. Meditating on the lam-rim ceases the defilements and gradually you will have the realizations.

“This direct meditation, going through the lam-rim prayer, is the most important thing in your daily life, in order to achieve enlightenment, so that then you are able to liberate numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsara’s sufferings and bring them to enlightenment. Each time you meditate on the lam-rim by reciting even one lam-rim prayer, it brings you one more day closer to enlightenment, and to enlightening all sentient beings. …”

Read more of Rinpoche’s advice on “Restarting Daily Practice” on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

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 reciting the names of the 35 Confession Buddhas during the long life puja at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, December 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“Lama Atisha explained why reciting the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas has so much power,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche said, speaking on purification practices during the Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga retreat at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in 2003. “In the past, when the Thirty-five Buddhas were bodhisattvas, they made many prayers to be able to benefit sentient beings, to easily purify our defilements and negative karma. When they achieved enlightenment, they achieved the Buddha’s ten qualities or powers, one of which is the power of prayer. So, their names have the power of all those past prayers. That is why, when sentient beings recite their names, they have so much power to purify defilements and eons of negative karma. Every single quality the Thirty-five Buddhas attained was in order to benefit sentient beings, there was no other reason or motivation for it, so we should use this advantage. …”

Visit Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive online to read the complete teaching “Thirty-five Buddhas Confession and Purification Practice.” The FPMT Foundation Store offers materials for the practice of prostration to the Thirty-five Buddhas.

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 Richard Gere, Mundgod, India, December 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

The Jangchup Lamrim teachings with His Holiness the Dalai Lama at Gaden Monastery have concluded. More than 25,000 people, including 2000 foreigners from 43 countries, attended the week-long teaching event in South India. Lama Zopa Rinpoche was among the many high lamas, rinpoches and geshes in attendance. On Christmas Day, Lama Zopa Rinpoche had lunch with American actor Richard Gere, who was also attending the teachings.

You can find daily summaries and video and audio links of the teachings on JangchupLamrim.org. His Holiness’ website DalaiLama.com also has daily summaries of the teachings and His Holiness’ activities.

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 visiting a park in Leeds, UK, July 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

“… Everybody wants happiness and does not want problems or suffering. I think that if you want to be happy, it’s very important to know how to enjoy life. If you know how to enjoy life, whether you are a prime minister or a porter, a millionaire or a beggar, you will find happiness in every situation. If you know how to live your life and you understand the methods to apply, you can make your life happy,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche says in the featured teaching of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive’s November 2014 E-letter.   

“Your mind, or mental continuum, has all the potential to apply methods that can make your life really happy, peaceful, and satisfying, but this depends on your actions in everyday life. Whether you are a prime minister or a porter, a millionaire or a beggar, whether you live alone or live in a city with many people, whatever the situation, if you know how to live life, there’s always a way to make your life happy and to find satisfaction and peace.

“It all depends on your daily activities — on what you do and how you think. The main thing is your attitude in life. Everything depends on your own mind. If you create one concept, you will find problems in your life. With another concept, the correct way of thinking, there will be no problems in your life; the problems won’t exist. You won’t find any problems in your life. So, everything depends on your own mind. Problems come from your own mind and happiness also has to come from your own mind. It is not that problems come from your mind and happiness comes from outside. Both come from your own mind. …”

You can read the entire teaching “Happiness Depends on Transforming the Mind” 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.