receive our newsletters
join Friends of FPMT
Lama Zopa Rinpoche and attendees during the long life puja offered to Rinpoche on September 11, 2022. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
On September 11, 2022, Amitabha Buddhist Centre, Singapore, offered a moving long life puja to Lama Zopa Rinpoche who has been teaching at the center since August 1. The proceedings involved the traditional five dakini dance, a procession bearing an array of the traditional offerings, long life prayers for His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Rinpoche by ABC’s choir, Mudita, with musical accompaniment, and also a composition of praise written by long-time student Cecilia Tsong.
Cecilia Tsong offering her beautifully composed praise to Lama Zopa Rinpoche during the September 11 long life puja. Photo courtesy of ABC Facebook page.
Long Life Praise of Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Composed by Cecilia Tsong
This is a miracle. Having the privilege once again of offering a long life puja to our most precious Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche even as the world is imploding with wars, famines, natural disasters and rampant violence. Still rocked to its very core by a virus invisible to the naked eye. So, this is a miracle.
Your presence here now makes us realize how much we have taken for granted over the years: The annual visits, the sessions that often go into early hours of the morning. Rinpoche has no concept of time, we would mutter to ourselves! But of course Rinpoche has the keenest, clearest realization of the value of time. How every single millisecond not spent practicing the Dharma is time lost and wasted, time gone forever!
And now, Rinpoche uses his skillful means to show us the value of time in a different way. Rinpoche is now meticulous in his time keeping, constantly checking if time is up. Reminding us that there will be a time when time is up for all of us, a time when the Dharma – an unbearable thought – will no longer be heard. So every word, every syllable is ever more precious than before.
Rinpoche, in composing this praise, we recognize that no matter how effusive our words may be, there is so much of Rinpoche’s qualities we are still too obscured to see. So, we rely on scriptural authority.
In the Vajra Cutter Sutra, when Subhuti asked the Buddha if that Sutra can ever be taught in the future, the Buddha reassured him there will be teachers who are “bodhisattva mahasattvas, endowed with morality, endowed with qualities, endowed with wisdom,” who will have made homage and roots of virtue to not just a single buddha but to many hundred thousands of buddhas.” The Buddha must have been referring to one such as you, Rinpoche.
From the Golden Light Sutra, hundreds of thousands of bodhisattvas praised the Tathagata Suvarnaratnakarachhatrakuta with these words. But surely, they were talking about you too, Rinpoche?
O Conqueror, through revealing the nectar of the Dharma
You usher in the deathless city;
An abode of peace,
You are the source of everything serene.
O Conqueror, you free migrating beings from suffering
And liberate creatures from the ocean of misery
You place them well upon the path to peace
And give happiness to every being.
Nothing can be found that is comparable
To the sage’s ocean of virtue and wisdom
Possessing compassion for beings laden with life,
You have the powers of love, perseverance and skill.
There is none among beings, even among gods,
Who in many thousands of millions of eons
Can fully explain merely one drop of virtue
From the ocean of your supreme qualities.
So, what can we see?
We should be reminded Rinpoche was originally here for a medical procedure and recuperation. At the airport, with no consideration whatsoever for his own safety, Rinpoche greeted each of us, fully unmasked, so that we can all see that wonderful smile, hear that joyful laughter. Even as Ven. Roger tried vainly to mask up Rinpoche time and again!
Within two days of the procedure, Rinpoche attended our celebration of His Holiness’ 87th birthday. The only concessions Rinpoche made to his condition were to do a standing prostration and sit in a chair. Rinpoche then graced Khen Rinpoche’s 60th birthday celebrations and Guru Puja on Wheel Turning Day where Rinpoche, like an indulgent father, treated us to Magnum ice cream.
Within days, an intense series of lojong teachings started, Zoomed around the world and the extremely rare and precious Heruka Five-Deity and Body Mandala initiations were conferred. And for the very first time at ABC, Rinpoche officiated at the extensive Most Secret Hayagriva Puja that lasted for over 10 hours!
It must be abundantly clear by now that to rest, to look after his own health and recovery is a concept that is not only alien but completely repugnant to Rinpoche. It is totally unbearable to Rinpoche not to teach and not to benefit when there is the opportunity to do so.
Astoundingly, Rinpoche genuinely sees himself only as a Mickey Mouse lama, the Lawudo comedian, who knows nothing about the Dharma, who describes his own extraordinary teachings as “garbage talk,” who constantly asks himself whether he is truly benefitting sentient beings, bemoaning that he is “so lazy” and “not doing enough!”
Let us have a look at what this “not doing enough” looks like.
Rinpoche has made supporting the sangha a key priority of the FPMT organization.
- The Supporting Ordained Sangha Fund regularly offers grants for food for sangha in monasteries in India, Nepal, and Mongolia and has most recently offered US$900,000 to the newly created Food Fund of Gyumed Monastery, an extremely important monastery that provides the highest education to top Buddhist scholars and teachers, including our very own Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi.
- Over US$400,000 has been offered to Tashi Lhunpo Monastery to help build a new 27,000 sq. feet debate courtyard that will enable its monks to debate uninterrupted throughout the year.
- Monthly stipends are offered to all senior teachers of the Gelug lineage and travel and food expenses are sponsored for hundreds of monks attending the winter debates and the annual Gelugpa exam.
Part of Rinpoche’s Vast Vision is to populate the world with holy objects for world peace.
- The Holy Objects Fund supports this vision with the aim of creating 100,000 stupas and prayer wheels, 1,000 Maitreya statues, and many, many huge Guru Rinpoche statues.
- The FPMT family are all encouraged to commission giant thangkas to be displayed on special occasions. Prior to the pandemic, ABC has been displaying its own magnificent 50 feet high Amitabha Buddha thangka at the Vesak Day celebrations.
No one teaches the vital importance of generating the good heart, compassion, and bodhicitta quite like Rinpoche. Rinpoche also frequently reminds us of the suffering of animals.
- Put into action, the FPMT Social Services Fund offers grants to projects in India, Nepal, and Mongolia targeted at disadvantaged children, the elderly, the sick, and very poor and supports schools, hospices, health clinics, soup kitchens, and elderly homes.
- The Animal Liberation Sanctuary at Kopan Monastery in Nepal, soon to be further expanded, houses animals such as goats and cows, many saved by Rinpoche himself from the butcher’s shop.
These are only the tip of the tip of the iceberg of Rinpoche’s projects. So when it says in Rinpoche’s long life prayer, “Sustaining, preserving, and spreading the Manjunath’s victorious doctrine;/ Who masterfully accomplish magnificent prayers honoring the Three Rare Sublime Ones,” these are not empty words of praise but actually describes Rinpoche’s enlightened activities.
There are many new students gathered here today but new or old, we are truly the most fortunate of the fortunate, for during these troubled times, when there are so many wayward but charismatic teachers leading their students astray, Rinpoche is the guru who truly possesses and surpasses all the ten qualities of the valid guru. Rinpoche is the real deal!
So, Rinpoche, this is our heartfelt commitment to you:
You are our guru, you are our yidam,
You are our dakini and Dharma protector.
From now until enlightenment,
We shall seek no other refuge than you.
For the sake of your students, old and new, Rinpoche, please, please live long.
And for countless others, desperately seeking but yet to meet the fully qualified guru, you who are that perfect guru, let them quickly, quickly find you. For their sake, Rinpoche, please, please live long.
Our collective prayers have tremendous power and even if you were unable to attend the long life puja in person or online, we invite you to generate your own prayers for Rinpoche’s health and long life.
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.
You can learn more about the various charitable activities of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and the many funds which support Rinpoche’s vision.