Lama Zopa Rinpoche News

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.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Mahabodhi Temple, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.

This week Lama Zopa Rinpoche has been at the Mahabodhi Stupa in Bodhgaya, India, where he is offering the oral transmission of the Golden Light Sutra.  

Photographer Andy Melnic, who was at the stupa on Tuesday, sent the image above to Mandala, saying that he hadn’t altered the photo, “the halo comes from the light behind Rinpoche.”

FPMT Education Services has put together a page on the Golden Light Sutra where you can download the sutra in several languages, find Rinpoche’s advice on the benefits of reciting the sutra and audio of Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche’s oral transmission of the sutra.

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 teaching into the evening on Vulture’s Peak, Bihar, India, February 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

The Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive makes available transcripts of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings at the annual month-long Kopan courses going back to the first years of the course. The following is an excerpt from the 15th Kopan course, given in 1982. Here Rinpoche offers instruction on the Heart Sutra:

“It says in the Heart Sutra, ‘There is no this and that,’ saying so many ‘no’s.’ Sometimes when you meditate like this, sometimes meditate that yourself, the ‘I,’ the listener to the teaching, and the aggregates, the general and particular aggregates and the objects of the senses, are merely labeled. And then sometimes, as you hear the words, look at them. As you hear the words, whatever appears to your ‘I,’ your aggregates, your parts – the eyes, nose, those parts – without the mind wandering, as you hear the words, look at the appearance of your own particular aggregates, your own object of the senses. Also, you can think of others. Think where it says ‘no,’ ‘no,’ ‘no;’ apply that to this – on the thing that appears to your mind, apply the word ‘no.’

“Think, ‘All this is illusory.’ Like when you have taken LSD, you get visions of mandalas or going to the planets, and then at the same time the mind is aware that it is not real, it is just a hallucination. Similarly, while you are dreaming, at the same time, you are conscious of the dream, you recognized that this is a dream. Similar to this. At least you can meditate sometimes in this way.

“Then each time you do like this, it plants seeds, and the mind gets trained and can soon realize the meaning of emptiness, the absolute nature, the emptiness that is so much emphasized in Buddhadharma. It is emphasized so much how important it is to realize – there are so many volumes of teachings that explain about it in detail. There are the root texts and so many commentaries written by many realized lamas and by Indian pandits. So, soon that experience comes. What is in the books, what you talk about in the teachings, what you meditate on, becomes real. In other words, it becomes reality. Now it is just words, you know, imitating – when we are meditating, we are imitating, just repeating the words. It is like this in reality, but we don’t see it in this way. So now, one doesn’t see it as a reality for one’s own mind, as a kind of philosophy, but something that you cannot feel, or something that has no relation to the fact of existence. However, at that time, when the understanding and experience comes in your mind, it becomes normal reality, it becomes reality for your mind. Then in this way, one can be swiftly liberated from all the true suffering and the true cause of suffering.”

Visit the Archive to read the complete transcript.

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, Land of Medicine Buddha, September 2013. Photo by Chris Majors.

“First I want to say numberless thanks to all the FPMT family for your continual dedication and study, and for all your effort put into developing the centers by improving the conditions to receive teachers so that sentient beings can receive teachings, as well as all the FPMT projects and services that benefit sentient beings in so many different ways,” FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrote in the FPMT Annual Review 2013. “It’s amazing, really fantastic. Thank you very, very much. Because of this, more and more good results have been happening and we have been able to bring greater benefit to others. This is something we can all see, enjoy and rejoice in. …”

You can read all of Rinpoche’s inspirational letter to the FPMT family in the just published FPMT Annual Review 2013 “Please Rejoice with Us.” 

FPMT Annual Review 2013 cover

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 for Lama Tsongkhapa’s ”In Praise of Dependent Arising” at Nalanda, Bihar, India, February 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Losar, the celebration of the Tibetan Buddhist new year, falls on Sunday, March 2 this year. And the first two weeks of the new year are called Mönlam and are a very powerful time to practice and increase one’s commitment to both practice and study. Karmic results are multiplied by one hundred million, as cited by Lama Zopa Rinpoche in the Vinaya text Treasure of Quotations and Logic.

You can find Rinpoche’s advice on Mönlam collected here (on Rinpoche’s Advice page, under Buddha Multiplying Days), specific advice for practices to do on the Buddha Multiplying days here, and a calendar of all the dates here.

Please keep in mind: According to Ven. Choden Rinpoche, one of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachers, observation of auspicious days should be according to the date in India, not the date in one’s home country. Therefore, when Lama Zopa Rinpoche is not in India, Rinpoche celebrates Buddha Days and other auspicious dates according to the time in India.

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 walking up to Vulture’s Peak, Rajgir, Bihar, India, February 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

The walk up to Vulture’s Peak, where the Buddha taught, is a long gradual climb. Ven. Roger Kunsang, Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s assistant reported, ”Rinpoche did well,” while walking up to the top of the peak in early February. Rinpoche gave teachings into the evening at the sacred location.

Rinpoche, while staying at Root Institute in Bodhgaya, visited several holy pilgrimage sites in Bihar state, including the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodhgaya, Vulture’s Peak and also Nalanda.

Driving to Nalanda, Bihar, India, February, 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 does prostrations at Vulture’s Peak, the site of Buddha’s first teaching, India, February 2, 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

The most important thing for this life’s happiness, especially for the sentient beings you meet, is to have the thought:

I am the servant and they are the masters. I am the servant and they are the kings. They are the masters and I am like the dog. Sentient beings are the ones from whom I have received all my happiness. They are the dearest and most kind.

They are the ones from who all opportunities come, in relation to whom I have the opportunity to purify all my negative karma, create all the merit, and attain enlightenment. So they are the kindest of all. I should use my body, speech and mind to serve others, especially the people of the [Dharma] center, as well as all the animals and insects.

This is also the attitude one should have with one’s family, or if you are a teacher or the leader of a company, etc.

– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from Service as a Path to Enlightenment, from FPMT Education Services

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 money to the beggars on the way up to Vulture’s Peak. Rinpoche asks them to recite OM MANI PADME HUM, India, February 2, 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kusang.

“Normally, worldly business people think that the best way to invest is by doing business. But that is only certain when you make a profit. Until then, it’s uncertain. My own feeling is the most reliable investment is to offer money to monasteries and offer charity to sentient beings. This way, even though the result of the investment, the income, doesn’t appear right now, it is 100% certain that it will be received in the near future.

“The result of karma is that not only do you receive the income back, but the result manifests in various forms, various instances of happiness. The karmic result is so much more than the profit you would get from business. The result of karma is expandable, not just in one lifetime, but hundreds of thousands of lifetimes, and can also expand up to enlightenment.

“This way, there is no loss at all. In the case of business, there is uncertainty until you actually make a profit. I feel this way, investing by making charity or offerings, is more satisfying. Then, not only do you get the result of whatever you achieve, but others get the benefit also. This is something to think about.”

– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from “Investing for Real Profit,” on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive

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 his breakfast on the backside patio of Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India. In the background, all the mustard seed plants are in bloom, February 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“Just seeing a portrait or statue of Buddha purifies our mind and plants the seed of enlightenment. Whether we are believers or non-believers, we get that benefit, to be free from oceans of samsaric suffering. We have never been free from suffering, since beginningless rebirth up till now, so it gives us that incredibly precious opportunity,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche said during a teaching, given at Amitabha Buddhist Centre, Singapore, March 2013, on the benefits of making offerings to holy objects and how to create skies of merit by reciting the Offering Cloud Mantra.

“If we offer one grain of rice, no matter how small the picture, the statue, stupa or scripture is, the incredible benefit we achieve is the happiness of samsara. We will get that much happiness, from beginningless rebirth until now, and that much will be experienced in the future. This is the benefit we will get by offering one grain of rice or one tiny flower. …”

You can read the entire teaching, “The Benefits of Making Offerings,” on Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive, where it has recently been posted. 

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.

As the sun starts to disappear on Rajgir, Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching continues, February 2, 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

The Heart Sutra, a teaching on the nature of emptiness set at Vulture’s Peak, is the most widely known sutra of the Mahayana tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. It is part of the Prajñaparamita Sutras, which is a collection of about 40 sutras composed between 100 BCE and 500 CE. FPMT Education Services offers an electronic version of the Heart Sutra for download as well as a Spanish version and other resources on their “Heart Sutra” page.

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.

His Holiness the Karmapa and Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Maitreya School, Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, January 31, 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

His Holiness the Karmapa and Lama Zopa Rinpoche visited the Maitreya School at Root Institute in Bodhgaya, India. His Holiness the Karmapa spoke to the children of the school.

“Root Institute is an oasis of peace and tranquility, like a pure land within the environmental chaos of Bodhgaya,” reported kagyuoffice.org, the Karmapa’s official website. “His Holiness the Karmapa’s teaching after the Monlam at the Institute, established by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, has become an annual tradition, a special event eagerly awaited by his Western students. When His Holiness enters the cozy shrine room, it feels like the Buddha has come home to his sitting room, in marked contrast to the vast space of the Monlam Pavilion which seats 10,000.” You can read the entire article “Mahamudra Arises Spontaneously” on the Karmapa’s website.

His Holiness the Karmapa greeting Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, January 31, 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.