Lama Zopa Rinpoche News

Khyongla Rato Rinpoche giving oral transmissions to Lama Zopa Rinpoche, New York, US, August 2015. Photo by Nicholas Vreeland.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche recently traveled to New York state, where he is visiting Khyongla Rato Rinpoche, one of his teachers. Lama Zopa Rinpoche is receiving oral transmissions from Khyongla Rato Rinpoche during his visit.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche will be teaching in New York City August 21, 27 and 28 with a Guru Puja scheduled for August 25, all organized by Shantideva Meditation Center. Visit their website for more details.

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

“Each time pride arises, it leaves negative imprints on the mind,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche said in “Overwhelmed by Pride,” a response to a student asking for advice on how to curb prideful thinking. “It causes strong delusions to arise. … As it says in the thought transformation teachings, examine yourself and think of all the ignorance that exists in your mind and how many subjects you don’t know about. Also, think of all the phenomena that exist and all the subjects that you don’t know about. What you know is so little, hardly anything. There is so much ignorance. In this way, focus on your shortcomings.

“Think that the realizations in your mind are so small. They are not there, not even the realization of death and impermanence, or the realization of a precious human rebirth. You do not have even those realizations.

“In this way reflect on your shortcomings, including mistakes made in the past. Thinking like this immediately makes you feel lower and helps you feel respect for others.

“In the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, it says: ‘With my actions, I want to achieve a human body in my next life, but what I create is only negative karma, so there is only non-virtue being created.’

“If you examine your actions daily and your motivation, you will see that your main motivation is for this life only. Most actions are performed out of attachment, not just attachment seeking happiness in this life, but also attachment clinging to this life’s happiness. Actually, 24 hours a day your attitude is attachment. That means even our Dharma actions are performed with this motivation, with the thought of this life’s happiness. So that means 24 hours a day your life becomes non-virtue, so the ripened result is to be reborn in the lower realms. This means all your actions are non-virtuous, including meditation and prayers. All of these also become non-virtue. That is what the quote means.

“When pride arises when you see others who have lower qualities, an ugly body, less possessions, no realizations, and so forth, the antidote is to think about the good qualities that they do have. Even if the person has shortcomings, think on the side of their good qualities. That is one antidote. … ”

Find the complete teaching in the “Pride” section of “Emotions” in the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive’s Online Advice Book: http://bit.ly/online-advice-book-pride

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.

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

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

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

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

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

Ven. Roger Kunsang, Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s assistant and CEO of FPMT Inc., shares Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent pith sayings on Ven. Roger’s Twitter page. (You can also read them on Ven. Roger’s Facebook page.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Find more photo albums of Lama Zopa Rinpoche on FPMT.org.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.

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

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

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

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.