Lama Zopa Rinpoche News

Lama Zopa Rinpoche prostrating in front of rooftop altar, Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

By Ven. Sarah Thresher

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has been staying at Root Institute in Bodhgaya, India, where he has been engaged in nonstop virtuous activities. Ven. Sarah Thresher was with Rinpoche in Bodhgaya and shares this report.

Rinpoche designed and commissioned an altar for the rooftop of his house at Root Institute. Not just one small altar filled with pictures, statues of buddhas, water bowl offerings and light offerings, but a series of altars that stretch the width of the rooftop. Rinpoche wanted people to see this new altar to get some ideas and inspiration. Holy objects are incredibly precious and if we don’t make full use of them, we are wasting our good fortune.

You can read more from Ven. Sarah Thresher on Rinpoche’s activites in Bodhgaya online.

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 an oral transmission of the Vajra Cutter Sutra on Vulture’s Peak, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

During Monlam, Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave a teaching on and an oral transmission of the Vajra Cutter Sutra on Vulture’s Peak. According to Rinpoche’s assistant Ven. Roger Kunsang, Ven. Antonio Satta had requested this lung many years ago. Many Sangha members and students went with Rinpoche to Vulture’s Peak from Root Institute in Bodhgaya to receive the oral transmission. 

Ven. Antonio Satta (on left) debating with Lama Zopa Rinpoche on the “merely labeled” during the hike down from Vulture’s Peak, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an organization dedicated to preserving Mahayana Buddhism through offering the Buddha’s authentic teachings and to facilitating reflection, meditation, practice and the opportunity to actualize and directly experience the Buddha’s teachings. Sign up to receive news and updates.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche giving the oral transmission of the Vajra Cutter Sutra on Vulture’s Peak, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, during the annual lam-rim course at Kopan in 2000, gave the oral transmission of the Heart Sutra and the Vajra Cutter Sutra. Here is an unedited transcript from the first day of teaching he offered at the course. In it, Rinpoche explains the importance of correctly understanding emptiness, which is the subject of the two sutras:

As I mentioned before, I’ll repeat again, we need to, must remove the imprint of delusion. For that, need to study teachings on emptiness, right view. Have to realize emptiness. Not just what people call “emptiness,” not just any kind of emptiness, what people call “emptiness,” even Dharma books – what anybody calls “emptiness,” not that. It has to be the right one. It has to be right one because the root of samsara, root of the suffering, only one very specific wrong concept, very specific wrong concept. There’s not many roots of samsara; there’s one typical, there’s one specific ignorance: even though the “I” exists in mere name, merely imputed by the mind, that’s how – it’s not that the “I” doesn’t exist. “I” exists. It exists being merely labeled by the mind. That’s how it exists. That’s what the “I” is. What is “I” is that. That’s all.

By realizing ultimate nature of “I,” after that, how you come to realize, by realizing absolute truth of the “I” then the next, as a result, you realize conventional truth of the “I.” How the “I” exists you come to know. You come to discover what is the “I.” How it exists you come to know that it exists being merely imputed by the mind.

So when you discover “I” this is how you see – other than that is an hallucination. “I” other than that, what we believe, what appears to us, totally hallucination, false “I.”

So, therefore, there’s a very specific root of suffering, ignorance: a concept. I’m not going to go into details. We allow our mind when – twenty-four hours our mind continuously impute “I.” Our mind imputes “I.” …

You can read the entire transcript of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings at the 33rd Kopan Course in November 2000 on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive, which preserves the teachings of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

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 Dagri Rinpoche during long life puja on Losar, Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Sarah Thresher.

By Ven. Sarah Thresher

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has been staying at Root Institute in Bodhgaya, India. Rinpoche has been engaged in many practices during Losar and the two weeks that follow. Ven. Sarah Thresher has been participating in these virtuous activities and shared this report.

Losar started very early morning with Yamantaka and Palden Lhamo prayers before dawn. Dagri Rinpoche stayed over at Root Institute to join Rinpoche for the prayers. Before dawn the monks served early morning Tibetan tea and kapse [fried bread].

After breakfast people began arriving for the long life puja for Lama Zopa Rinpoche requested by Dagri Rinpoche and Root Institute. Representatives from various Indian centers and the two Maitreya Projects – in Bodhgaya and Kushinagar – led Rinpoche into the gompa. Rinpoche went first to offer body, speech and mind to the decorated throne of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and then the throne of Lama Yeshe. This Losar was the 30th anniversary of Lama Yeshe’s passing away.

Dagri Rinpoche and Keutsang Rinpoche both took part in the puja along with several rows of monks from Sera Je Monastery. Even though Bodhgaya is not busy now, the gompa was full with people showing up from all over to pray for the guru’s long life. Following the tsog offering, Rinpoche took the microphone and began teaching. First he explained how important are these 15 days of Losar – the days that commemorate Buddha displaying miracles to subdue the Tirthika teachers – because at this time merit multiplies many 100 millions of times. Rinpoche commented that for “lazy” people like himself, it was an opportunity to make up for all the lost time of the rest of the year when no practice was done.

Dagri Rinpoche and Keutsang Rinpoche at Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Sarah Thresher.

Rinpoche then continued with a beautiful talk about the qualities of Lama Yeshe and the importance of the guru. He quoted Padampa Sangye who advised, “Cherish the Guru more than the Buddha and realizations will come in this lifetime.” Rinpoche described some of the obvious qualities of Lama Yeshe – his always-loving aspect that attracted everyone to him, his humility, his wisdom – and explained that Lama was known by all to be a great scholar. Rinpoche then mentioned that Lama Yeshe was also a great yogi who had the tantric realizations of clear light and illusory body but that he hid these profound practices by meditating while lying down during his regular afternoon “nap.” Rinpoche said that whatever benefit the FPMT had been able to offer and however much we ourselves had been able to learn and practice, it was all due to Lama Yeshe’s kindness because it was Lama who set up the organization.

Then Rinpoche praised the director of Root Institute, Ven. Trisha, for her devotion to Buddha, Dharma, Sangha and compassion, which meant the center was harmonious and able to benefit sentient beings greatly.

Following the puja, lunch was offered on the lawn and the three lamas sat outside for a long leisurely lunch discussing Dharma.

In the afternoon, Rinpoche went to the Mahabodhi Stupa around 4 p.m. and stayed until 9 p.m.! This was the first day of the 15 days of thousands of light offerings made at the stupa by Root Institute, so Rinpoche first blessed and offered the lights. He then taught on motivation and how to circumambulate and led the group around the stupa before going to offer robes and bowls of fruit and flowers to the main Buddha statue along with Dagri Rinpoche and Keutsang Rinpoche. After making offerings and prayers in the main shrine, the three lamas sat under the Bodhi Tree, where they recited many more prayers and took the bodhisattva vows.

Rinpoche continued circumambulating while reading 40 pages of Lama Tsongkhapa’s Interpretable and Definitive Meaning (Lekshay Nyingpo) until the battery ran out on the flashlight. Along the way more and more people joined the circumambulation and Rinpoche would give spontaneous teachings. He pointed out one place where he used to sit and recite many prayers in the past. He also taught a young Tibetan girl who was prostrating around the stupa by doing short prostrations on the benefits of the full-length prostration.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching beggar, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Sarah Thresher.

As we were leaving the stupa, a beggar who had polio and could not walk came up to Rinpoche. Rinpoche asked him some questions and then began giving a long teaching (translated into Hindi by one of the students). He told the story about a boy in Nepal who had no arms but had managed to overcome his disability and graduate from Delhi University. Then Rinpoche taught the very essence of Dharma: how it is the mind that creates our sufferings and problems and the mind that creates happiness, therefore it is so important to transform the mind. And how positive actions bring happiness and harmful actions bring suffering. A crowd of Indians and beggars gathered around listening to Rinpoche’s skillful teaching. I have never seen any other lama teach the beggars in Bodhgaya before and this young man was obviously amazed by all the attention he was receiving.

Light offerings at Mahabodhi Stupa, part of Root Institute’s Festival of Light and Merit, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.

Read more from Ven. Sarah Thresher on Rinpoche’s activites during Monlam.

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 buying extensive flower offerings at the Mahabodhi Stupa, Bodhgaya, India, February 2014. Photo by Ven. Sarah Thresher.

While staying in Bodhgaya, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has made frequent visits to the Mahabodhi Stupa, doing circumambulation, pujas and making offerings. In 2013, Rinpoche translated “Padmasambhava’s Instruction on Offerings to Stupas,” which details the benefits of prostrating to, circumambulating, making offerings, and offering service to stupas. The text, which Rinpoche would like to be used far and wide, is available from FPMT Education Services as a free booklet in several downloadable formats in English as well as in Italian. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an organization dedicated to preserving Mahayana Buddhism through offering the Buddha’s authentic teachings and to facilitating reflection, meditation, practice and the opportunity to actualize and directly experience the Buddha’s teachings. Sign up to receive news and updates.

For more on holy objects, visit FPMT Education Services’s page “Holy Objects.”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche offering gifts to children from Maitreya School and Tara Children’s Home at Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.

“The objective of a school is to bring up children so that they come to have a compassionate nature, and to have the quality of loving kindness in their minds, so that they grow up with the thought of universal responsibility. They need to have the idea, ‘I have the responsibility to free others from their problems and grow up having these qualities.’ That stops them from giving harm to others; they only benefit others. If we develop the mind in this life, then life to life, as the mind continues, of course it affects our future lives. So, from life to life there is benefit. The children are able to benefit all sentient beings, to bring them to liberation and enlightenment. Many people will not understand this, but this is our goal: to create less causes of suffering and to create more causes for happiness. It brings peace and happiness to the family, country, society, and world. …”

– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from the “Educating Children” page 
on the “Lama Zopa Rinpoche Online Advice Book”

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 playing cymbals, Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo and video by Andy Melnic.

You can watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche playing cymbals during a Padmasambhava incense puja on the roof of Root Institute in Bodhgaya. Rinpoche has been staying in Bodhgaya during Monlam.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche doing puja with Sangha and lay students on the roof of Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.

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 the children of Maitreya School and Tara Children’s Home with Ven. Samten interpreting into Hindi, Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche addressed all of the children from Maitreya School and Tara Children’s Home, both projects of Root Institute in Bodhgaya, India. Rinpoche talked with the children for two to three hours with Ven. Samten interpreting for Rinpoche into Hindi. 

Children from Maitreya School and Tara Children’s Home at Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.

Tara Children’s Home offers a caring environment and home for orphaned children affected by HIV/AIDS. It is the only such home of its kind in the Indian state of Bihar. Currently, 22 children live at Tara Children’s Home.

Maitreya School offers children from Bodhgaya and surrounding villages an education aligned with the standard Indian curriculum as well as life skills of compassion, honesty and loving kindness, as taught by the 16 Guidelines, a program of Universal Education for Compassion and Wisdom. Currently, the Maitreya School is looking for volunteer teachers.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche being greeted by the children of Maitreya School and Tara Children’s Home, Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche reading the Sutra of Golden Light at Mahabodhi Temple, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.

Our hearts and prayers go out to all the people on Malaysia Airlines flight 370 as well as all their families. FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche recently gave advice on what we can do for the 239 people who were on the flight:

• To recite the Sutra of Golden Light mindfully and Medicine Buddha puja.
• In addition, to recite 100,000 Names of Buddha. As this is only in Tibetan, this recitation could be sponsored.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an organization dedicated to preserving Mahayana Buddhism through offering the Buddha’s authentic teachings and to facilitating reflection, meditation, practice and the opportunity to actualize and directly experience the Buddha’s teachings. Sign up to receive news and updates.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche offering body, speech and mind to the decorated throne of His Holiness the Dalai Lama on Losar, Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Sarah Thresher.

By Ven. Sarah Thresher

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has been staying at Root Institute in Bodhgaya, India. Rinpoche has been engaged in many practices during the Days of Miracles, which comprise the two weeks after Losar. Ven. Sarah Thresher has been participating in these virtuous activities and shared this report.

After several weeks’ intensive retreat and the busy Losar celebration, today was an opportunity for Rinpoche to rest. The plan is to give transmission of the Sutra of Golden Light at the Mahabodhi Stupa and an excellent teaching site has been set up under a tree on the right side.

Rinpoche left for the stupa around 7:30 p.m. today, stopping first for chai at the Mahayana Guest House where he gave a short teaching on the powerful merit of making offerings to the pores of the guru. Rinpoche said that many Westerners think they have to send money to monasteries in order to create merit, but at the center when we make an offering of just a glass of water or cup of tea to students who share the same guru, it is more powerful than offering to all the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, statues, stupas, scriptures and holy objects of the three times and ten directions. 

Light offerings at Mahabodhi Stupa, part of Root Institute’s Festival of Light and Merit, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.

Ven. Dekyong, who requested transmission of the Sutra of Golden Light, came with incense to lead Rinpoche to the stupa. Rinpoche commented that all the staff should take turns to invite him to the transmission with incense because the benefits of doing so explained in the Sutra of Golden Light (chapter 7) are so great. However Rinpoche did not begin the transmission tonight even though people had been waiting seven hours at the stupa for it to begin. Instead he circumambulated and blessed the lights. 

There are thousands of colored lights decorating the stupa right now as part of Root Institute’s Festival of Light and Merit (FLAM), in which light offerings are made in celebration of the four major buddha days. Rinpoche has commented several times how beautiful they are and has been personally reciting the offering prayer as he circumambulates. Tonight after the circumambulation was finished, Rinpoche talked for over an hour on the benefits of making offerings to holy objects, giving various examples of the extraordinary merit gained by offering even one light to the Buddha compared to offering universes filled with wish-granting jewels to numberless monks, arhats or bodhisattvas for many eons. Rinpoche also talked about the power of doing the prayers at the stupa together, since making prayers with others is far more powerful than reciting prayers alone in our own room. This is why in the monasteries they gather to do the pujas together. It is like trying to sweep a room with one straw or a bunch of straws. 

Rinpoche concluded that we are so fortunate to be offering all these many thousands of lights every night to all the gurus, buddhas, bodhisattvas, statues, stupas, scriptures and holy objects. Rinpoche commented that this year the lights are the most beautiful he has seen. This is the happiest day, the happiest Losar, the happiest life to be offering all these lights!

After the dedication prayers, Rinpoche went to do puja for one sick Tibetan lady until midnight.    

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.

On the way down from Vulture’s Peak, Lama Zopa Rinpoche stops to give teachings to the local Indians who sell things, February 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“Happiness doesn’t mean just the pleasure of eating food, having comfort and a house, and just temporary pleasures. House, eating – not eating the house! The comfort of having money and all that – not just that. I think even that comes from Dharma. Even studying at kindergarten, primary school, then college or university – that’s just the outside condition. If the person has success, happiness, it all comes from merit, good karma, positive action. The intention, the mental factor that accompanies the principal consciousness. So that’s karma. Karma’s not outside; it’s one’s own mind. That happiness comes from virtuous actions, not non-virtue but virtue. So it came from Dharma. Happiness, even money, having comfort, came from Dharma, it came from virtuous action. Just now I described virtuous action, that is Dharma. People think happiness comes from money, but they don’t know what the cause of money is. They think making money is from going to kindergarten, from kindergarten to primary school, then college, university. This general belief you have is that that’s the main cause, but that’s just a condition. The minute you decide to get a job, the minute you get, you’re able to make money. But there are people who can’t find a job for years, even though they’re trying to get one. So those are conditions – they’re not the main cause. The main cause is merit. …”

– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, excerpted from “Dharma Essentials for Happiness,” a talk given at Amitabha Buddhist Centre, Singapore, March 7, 2013 

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 doing prayers in front of the 24-foot Maitreya Buddha statue on the Maitreya Project land in Bodhgaya, India, February, 2014. Photo by Ven. Sarah Thresher.

While Rinpoche has been staying in Bodhgaya, he visited Maitreya Project land and offered prayers with members of the Maitreya team. Rinpoche has written a letter explaining that there are now two Maitreya Projects. For more, see this announcement.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche doing prayers in front of the 24-foot Maitreya Buddha statue on Maitreya Project land in Bodhgaya, India, February 2014. Photo by Ven. Sarah Thresher.

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.