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Lama Zopa Rinpoche examines the “Just by Seeing” mantra he has written out, Washington, USA, October 2016.
“Merely seeing this mantra purifies 100,000 eons of negative karma,” says Lama Zopa Rinpoche, adding, “This is said by Buddha in the sutra Pagpa Chu Lung Rolpai Do.”
Called the Pagpa Chu Lung Rolpai Do mantra or the “Just by Seeing” mantra, one is purified by merely seeing it in Tibetan says Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who in the above photo is holding up a copy he has recently written out himself while on retreat in Washington State.
The “Just by Seeing” mantra is spoken OM HANU PHASHA BHARA HE YE SVAHA and is reproduced again here in easier-to-read Tibetan:
Mantras, meaning “mind protection,” are Sanskrit syllables that are usually recited in conjunction with the practice of a particular meditational deity and embody the qualities of the deity with whom they are associated. They bring benefit to all who see, touch, hear, or speak them. Some mantras are so powerful that they are said to be able to benefit others even when no virtuous motivation is present.
The Just by Seeing / Pagpa Chu Lung Rolpai Do mantra is available on the FPMT.org mantras page.
This mantra is also found on the Precious Mantra Hat designed by Lama Zopa Rinpoche and available through the Foundation Store.
For advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche about the benefits of particular mantras, or how to engage with mantras to eliminate or reduce obstacles, please visit FPMT.org for Advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche and the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive for Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche in Tso Pema, India, February 2016. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
“We are completely hallucinating,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche says in his latest book, Sun of Devotion, Stream of Blessings, newly available from Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive in print and digital formats.
He continues: “This is the real situation we are faced with. It is a big mistake—the biggest mistake—that we make, to see things as existing from their own side, existing by themselves, as truly existing. To use ordinary language, things appear real to us, real from there. This ignorance is a hallucination; it decorates an object. I find this a very interesting way of describing it. This is how it happens. Past ignorance has left an imprint on the mind and that negative imprint decorates, projects, the hallucination, making the I appear as real. Whatever the object of the mind is—the I, the action, the object, form, sound, smell, taste, tangible object—the whole thing appears to us as real. There is a real car, a real road, a real sky, a real shop, real ice cream, real money … In the real gompa there are real flowers, real thangkas, real statues. Everything is real … We have no idea that it is only a hallucination …
“Everything is totally empty. It’s like a dream, like an illusion. If we are able to meditate this way, looking at all this like a dream, an illusion, a mirage—all the different examples—then it becomes very interesting. There is nothing to become attached to because it is not real.”
Read more from Sun of Devotion, Stream of Blessings on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/chapter/sun-devotion-stream-blessings
Get the book from the Foundation Store and support FPMT International Office:
https://shop.fpmt.org/Sun-of-Devotion-Stream-of-Blessings_p_2690.html
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 blesses a waiter in a restaurant in Thailand, June 2016. Photo by Ven. Holly Ansett.
“Every single sentient being … is our wish-granting jewel,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche instructs in his latest book, Sun of Devotion, Stream of Blessings, newly available from Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive in print and digital formats. He adds, “This is the purpose of our life, to live for them, for their happiness, to serve them.”
“Maybe you are working in an old folks’ home or something and you take care of one old person,” Rinpoche continues. “You should think … that you are so fortunate to be able to use your body, speech, and mind, your limbs, to serve this one sentient being. Remembering that all your past lives’ happiness, your present happiness and your future happiness all come from this person, you should see him or her as most kind, most precious, most dear. Then you serve that person in whatever way you can. If there is something you are unable to do, what to do? We are all limited in power, but whatever you are able to do, offer that service from your heart … offer your body, speech, and mind. That is the best Dharma, the best meditation. Then you will be happy. The more you appreciate how precious serving another being is, the more you enjoy it. It doesn’t have to be a guru you are serving. Your mind will be so happy to serve, whatever you can do. This applies to even the small things in your daily life: offering your seat to somebody on the bus, helping somebody carry a heavy load or, as my guru Kyabje Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche often mentioned, rescuing a drowning insect. Try to do whatever you can to help, according to your capacity, whether it’s big or small.”
Read more from Sun of Devotion, Stream of Blessings on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/chapter/sun-devotion-stream-blessings
Get the book from the Foundation Store and support FPMT International Office:
https://shop.fpmt.org/Sun-of-Devotion-Stream-of-Blessings_p_2690.html
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 visits with some Sherpa pilgrims, Tsopema, India, February 2016. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
“Cherish sentient beings first; put enlightenment second,” says Lama Zopa Rinpoche in his book The Joy of Compassion, available from Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive online as well as in print and digital formats.
“Why do I say put enlightenment second?” he asks. “Of course, enlightenment is extremely important because without it you cannot work perfectly for sentient beings. You cannot be a perfect guide … But what should be the first thing in your heart, in your life, the goal of your life? Sentient beings. At present, who is the most precious person in your life, in your heart? It’s yourself or, if not yourself, then your greatest object of attachment. I don’t think you hold your object of anger most precious. It’s your object of attachment; that particular person. So that’s how you should hold sentient beings, feel them to be most precious. No matter how much you help the person to whom you are most attached, no matter how kind you are to that person, all you want is for that person to be happy. If that person receives help, achieves happiness, you’re satisfied. That’s your goal; you don’t want anything in return. You don’t need that person to respect you, to praise you or to do something good for you in return; you don’t have any such expectation. Your attitude is such that you are simply satisfied by that person’s receiving happiness or help. What do you call it—unconditional love? … Then, enlightenment is the method.”
Read more from The Joy of Compassion on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/joy-compassion
Get the book from the Foundation Store and support FPMT International Office:
https://shop.fpmt.org/The-Joy-of-Compassion-eBook_p_2364.html
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 prepares for a party in Singapore, February 2016
“You can collect a huge amount of merit even in your own home by having a party,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche instructs in his latest book, Sun of Devotion, Stream of Blessings, newly available from Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive in print and digital formats.
“Whenever you throw a party for your family or friends,” he explains, “if you can also invite your enemy, that is the best party! That is something that worldly people don’t do. Worldly people usually harm the enemy, insulting him, shooting him and things like that. If you are a Dharma practitioner, you can invite your enemy and offer him apple pie or momos or whatever. At a party, if you think of each guest as your guru or His Holiness the Dalai Lama when you offer them food and drink, you are making offerings to your guru or His Holiness. In that way you collect the greatest merit and make the most powerful purification … So, by imagining all the guests at your party as your guru, as His Holiness, that is your Dharma practice, your guru devotion practice … It is such a quick way to achieve enlightenment.”
Read more from Sun of Devotion, Stream of Blessings on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/chapter/sun-devotion-stream-blessings
Get the book from the Foundation Store and support FPMT International Office:
https://shop.fpmt.org/Sun-of-Devotion-Stream-of-Blessings_p_2690.html
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.
Amitabha Buddha during the celebration at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington, US, October 2016. Photos by Ven. Losang Sherab.
On Saturday, October 1, the second Amitabha Buddha Festival was held at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land in rural Washington State, US. About 60 people, which included neighbors, local students and guests from out-of-town, attended the celebration, which began at 9 a.m. and lasted until 5 p.m. The festival was envisioned by Lama Zopa Rinpoche to honor the large Amitabha Buddha statue and the retreat land that surrounds it and featured dance offerings and a community lunch. The 13-foot (4-meter) tall Amitabha Buddha statue is made of highest-quality white marble from Vietnam and weighs 16 tons (14,790 kilograms). It took over two years for the sculpting to be completed and was invited onto the land in late-June 2016.
Sherpas from Seattle and Portland perform a traditional dance
About 25 Sherpas traveled from the Seattle and Portland areas to do one of the dance offerings in traditional dress and to help offer lunch, which was sponsored by Rinpoche. They were impressed by the land and the two large statues there and thought it beautiful. Students from nearby Pamtingpa Center in Tonasket, offered a Tara dance and a local Native American offered a song. (A dance offering by local Native Americans had been planned, but had to be canceled due to unforeseen circumstances.) The dances were performed facing the statue as well as the extensive offerings.
Rinpoche and festival attendees watch the Tara dance offering
Rinpoche created the text for the celebration, basing it on Lama Tsongkhapa’s text for the Monlam celebration. The text includes an extensive bath offering, prayers to the 35 Buddhas of Confession, and an extensive offering practice, similar to one done during a long life puja. For each offering, Rinpoche held up the item being offered and recited the text in Tibetan. Ven. René Fuesi then read the meaning of the offering in English. This year Rinpoche composed two new verses about cars and airplanes that were added to the text:
Offering Trucks, Cars, Trains and Other Vehicles
Due to the merits of having offered these vehicles
May ourselves and all transmigratory beings
Realize the basis of the two truths.
(The truth for the absolute wisdom and the truth for the all obscuring mind)
And by completing the path method possessed by wisdom and wisdom possessed by method
Cross from beyond the oceans of samsaric suffering and
May the unified holy body and mind of Buddha be achieved.
Offering Airplanes
Due to the method of having offered these airplanes
And especially by the blessings of the Virtuous Friend,
The essence of embodiment of numberless Buddhas.
May ourselves and all transmigratory beings actualize the unification
Of holy body and holy mind of no more learning
In the brief lifetime of degenerated time.
When Rinpoche completes the celebration text, he has indicated that it can be used for other big festival days at FPMT centers around the world.
Items offered during the extensive offerings part of the celebration
Resident Sangha and students from Pamtingpa Center took care of the arrangements for the celebration, which included collecting the offerings, building platforms, bringing chairs and carpets, putting up brocades, and sewing intricate umbrellas for the Amitabha Buddha and Medicine Buddha statues on the property and for the large Tara thangka that was also displayed during the festival.
The Sangha at Rinpoche’s house at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land were up all night finishing the preparations. The festival was scheduled at the last minute but came together beautifully and Rinpoche seemed pleased. He has said that he would like it to happen annually. The first Amitabha Buddha Festival took place in 2014. The festival didn’t happen last year due to devastating wildfires there.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche watches the Sherpa dance offering
Supporting the creation of holy objects is one of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s vasts visions for FPMT.
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 teaches to Western students, New York, US, July 2016. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
“You have to start with words,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches in his latest book, Sun of Devotion, Stream of Blessings, newly available from Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive in print and digital formats, “but without actualizing the path in your mind, without transforming your life, then it is merely study.”
He adds, “Both sutra and tantra are what the monks studied in the monasteries in Tibet for their whole lives. Through that, numberless meditators became bodhisattvas and were able to achieve buddhahood, becoming enlightened beings. In many other holy places in Tibet practitioners also achieved realizations; not only Milarepa but many others attained enlightenment there as well. Because of that, there are many, many places in Tibet that are unbelievably blessed. Just as the pandits did in Tibet, you Western students also need to study what is written in the texts and, through intensive contemplation, meditate on and actualize the path. You must try to hold in your heart the teachings that the Buddha and those other great holy beings in India and Tibet explained. If you can do that then the West too can become an extremely blessed place, like India, Nepal and Tibet.”
Read more from Sun of Devotion, Stream of Blessings on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/chapter/sun-devotion-stream-blessings
Get the book from the Foundation Store and support FPMT International Office:
https://shop.fpmt.org/Sun-of-Devotion-Stream-of-Blessings_p_2690.html
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 at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington State, September 2016. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
“In our life, whether we believe in karma, reincarnation, and so forth, we need to help others as much as possible.” So says Lama Zopa Rinpoche in his latest book, Sun of Devotion, Stream of Blessings, newly available from Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive in print and digital formats.
He continues: “As my guru, Kyabje Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche, says, we need to try to help even an insect that is suffering from having fallen into water by taking it out and freeing it. And if two insects are fighting, killing each other, we need to separate them. Even if we just offer to carry an older person’s heavy luggage or offer somebody a seat on the bus or train, even if it is just a small benefit in our everyday life, we should do whatever we can to help free others from suffering, to benefit them … To practice Dharma, the real thing is to serve others, to benefit others. Sentient beings are the objects most cherished by the buddhas … This tiny ant, this mosquito, this human—whether a rich man or a beggar—is the object most cherished by the numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas.”
Read more from Sun of Devotion, Stream of Blessings on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/chapter/sun-devotion-stream-blessings
Get the book from the Foundation Store and support FPMT International Office:
https://shop.fpmt.org/Sun-of-Devotion-Stream-of-Blessings_p_2690.html
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 his attendant Ven. Roger Kunsang, Washington State, USA, September 2016. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
“This is a real story,” recounts Lama Zopa Rinpoche in his latest book Sun of Devotion, Stream of Blessings, newly available from Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive in print and digital formats.
“At Buxa, there was a monk called Jamyang, who was Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo’s attendant in Tibet. Even though he couldn’t read texts because he was illiterate—he couldn’t even read the Tibetan alphabet—Rinpoche had told him that in the future he would be able to read the Guru Puja by himself, without anybody teaching him. Then, one day in Buxa, he was suddenly able to read the entire Guru Puja from beginning to end. This was the blessing of having served Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo in Tibet. By serving him he purified his mind and it happened exactly as Pabongka Rinpoche had predicted. This was the great benefit of having impeccable guru devotion to Pabongka Rinpoche. He didn’t tell me this himself; Lama Lhundrup told me … There are many other stories of people serving the guru who have suddenly realized emptiness or seen deities. That is the power, the benefit of showing devotion to and serving our guru.”
Read more from Sun of Devotion, Stream of Blessings on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/chapter/sun-devotion-stream-blessings
Get the book from the Foundation Store and support FPMT International Office:
https://shop.fpmt.org/Sun-of-Devotion-Stream-of-Blessings_p_2690.html
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 at Maitreya Instituut, the Netherlands, July 2015. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
Whenever Lama Zopa Rinpoche visits a holy site, a stupa or a gompa, he offers khatas to the statues and holy images there. During his visit to Maitreya Instituut Loenen in the Netherlands in July 2015, Rinpoche gave a spontaneous teaching on how to offer a khata to holy objects, which was captured in a short video. Rinpoche emphasized how you offer the khata on behalf of all sentient beings, how all spiritual attainments come from the guru and that you offer the khata so that oneself and all sentient beings may achieve the indestructible holy body.
Watch “How to Offer a Khata to Holy Objects” on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/kijVc2lWXHA
More information, photos and updates about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be found on Rinpoche’s webpage on FPMT.org. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and FPMT via email, sign up to FPMT News.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche blessing two dogs on the way to teaching, Maitreya Instituut, Loenen, Netherlands, July 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave this advice while in New York City in July 2016.
I have heard that you have to take indoor dogs out three times a day, so I thought that this gives you an unbelievable, incredible opportunity to help them.
By not harming and practicing morality toward even one sentient being, including these dogs, you can attain the state of the happy transmigratory beings. By not harming and practicing concentration and wisdom, even with dogs, you can achieve the happiness that is free from samsaric suffering. And by generating compassion, bodhichitta, you can attain buddhahood, ultimate happiness—the completion of all realizations and total freedom from all obscurations—through depending on these sentient beings, these dogs.
Another way to understand this is that by cherishing these dogs you can receive hundreds of thousands of happy rebirths and so forth in future lives. By cherishing these sentient beings, these dogs, you can achieve ultimate happiness forever. By cherishing these sentient being dogs you can achieve the peerless happiness of buddhahood. Not only that, but you also achieve the numberless past happinesses that you already have received since beginningless rebirths as well as your present happiness and all future happiness, including full enlightenment.
You may find this difficult to believe but it is logical. Your three time happinesses come from your good karma and your virtuous mind is the action of the Buddha. There are two actions of Buddha: one is within us sentient beings; the other is possessed only by the Buddha’s holy mind. Buddha comes from the bodhisattva, the bodhisattva comes from bodhichitta and bodhichitta comes from great compassion, which embraces numberless sentient beings, not leaving out even one: the numberless hell beings, pretas, animals, humans, asuras and suras.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche and a cute canine friend, Adelaide, Australia, May 2015. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
So this is how you receive all your past, present and future happiness from each and every sentient being, which includes the dogs that you take out for a walk three times a day. So these dogs are most precious—think like this—most precious, most kind, most dear and wish-fulfilling for you.
The next thing to understand is that these sentient beings are objects to not be harmed. They are to be cherished by you, to be taken care of with your body, speech and mind; you are to serve them.
One more thing to understand is that you have been experiencing the sufferings of the six realms numberless times from beginningless rebirths and you will have to experience them again without end, over and over again, if you don’t practice Dharma.
At this time you have received the impossible, a precious human life. And not only have you received a perfect human rebirth but you have also met the Mahayana sutra and tantra teachings, so not only can you achieve liberation from samsara; through having met the Mahayana sutra teachings you can achieve full enlightenment for sentient beings. Furthermore, through having met the Mahayana tantric teachings you can achieve enlightenment in just one lifetime—you don’t need the three countless great eons to collect merit and purify obscurations that you do when practicing sutra. Finally, you have met maha-anuttara yoga tantra, through which you can achieve the unified state of enlightenment in one brief lifetime of this degenerate age. So this time you are most fortunate.
Now, sentient beings who have received a perfect human rebirth like yours are extremely rare. Most other sentient beings haven’t even met the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, which means they will have to experience samsaric suffering endlessly. If you really think about it you won’t be able to stand it, not even for a second, without wanting to free them from samsara. And not only that—they have been experiencing such suffering from beginningless, numberless lives.
Now the dogs are exactly the same. You have to think about this. These dogs have been experiencing suffering since beginningless lifetimes and will continue to do so without end. You can’t stand leaving them in that state of suffering for even one second.
Dogs gathered at Jangsa Animal Saving Trust while Lama Zopa Rinpoche gives blessings, Bhutan, June 2016. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
So when you take your dogs out you should recite mostly OM MANI PADME HUM and the Maitreya Buddha mantras so that the dogs can hear them. That purifies their negative karma collected since beginningless time and allows them to collect merit. It purifies their mental continuum and brings them to enlightenment in the future: by meeting the Dharma they receive a higher rebirth, develop understanding through practicing Dharma and eventually achieve enlightenment. It is as if you are giving a wish-granting jewel to the dogs. Just by chanting you help them so much.
You can also recite the Medicine Buddha mantra, which helps them to not be reborn in the lower realms ever again, and the short Namgyälma mantra, which makes it impossible for them to be reborn in lower realms; this will be their last rebirth as an animal. Another mantra you can recite is OM PÄDMO USHNISHA VIMALE HUM PHAT. When you take the dogs out, chant so that they can hear it.
At the beginning, generate bodhichitta by thinking, “The purpose of my life is not simply to achieve the happiness of this life; nor is it to achieve either temporary or ultimate happiness for myself alone. The purpose of my life is to achieve enlightenment in order to free all sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment. Therefore I must achieve the state of omniscience. Therefore I am going to recite these mantras for the dogs and even others who are passing by.”
You can recite the mantras by chanting them like a song. Others might then just see you as happy person walking along with your dogs. If people ask what you’re singing you can say that you’re chanting mantras. It depends on who asks.
Scribed by Ven. Roger Kunsang, July 2016, New York, United States. Edited by Nicholas Ribush.
Find the mantras Lama Zopa Rinpoche recommends above on FPMT Education Services’ mantra resource page 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 Rinpoche, Ven. Roger Kunsang and Buddha Amitabha statue at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington, US, 2016. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
“Every time you look at holy objects—pictures of the Buddha, statues, scriptures, stupas—they plant the seed of liberation and enlightenment in your mental continuum. So every time you look at them they purify your mind. They plant the seed of enlightenment, which includes all the causes to achieve enlightenment,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches in the advice “Why Holy Objects are Precious and Wish-fulfilling.”
“How? When you look at them they plant a seed or positive imprint on your mental continuum so that later when you meet Buddhadharma, either in this life or in future lives, you are able to understand the words and the meaning of the teachings. From that, you are able to practice the meaning of the Dharma you have understood, which causes you to cease the gross and subtle defilements by actualizing the path and then your mental continuum becomes omniscient mind. This is what is meant when we say that by seeing holy objects it plants the seed of enlightenment on the mind—it contains the whole path from guru devotion and the three principals up to the two stages of tantra and enlightenment. Seeing holy objects makes us actualize all of this as a result. This is the effect we get from seeing them and this is how they cause us to achieve enlightenment.
“Every time we see holy objects it purifies so much negative karma, so many defilements. This is because of the power of the holy object. Holy objects have so much power. It’s like an atomic bomb—even though it is small it can bring so much harm and cause so much destruction. That example is negative but what I am saying is that the material has power, like electricity. The material of an atomic bomb has the power to harm and destroy the world. The material of holy objects—statues, scriptures and stupas—has the power to affect our mind, to leave a positive imprint. …”
Read the entire advice from Rinpoche, “Why Holy Objects are Precious and Wish-fulfilling,” on FPMT.org:
https://fpmt.org/wp-content/uploads/teachers/zopa/advice/ImportanceofHolyObjects.pdf
More information, photos and updates about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be found on Rinpoche’s webpage on FPMT.org. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and FPMT via email, sign up to FPMT News.