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FPMT Education Services is pleased to announce the release of Cultivating Mindfulness of Bodhichitta in Daily Activities, a collection of essential daily bodhichitta mindfulness practices.
In Cultivating Mindfulness of Bodhichitta in Daily Activities, Lama Zopa Rinpoche shows us how to take the essence of our precious human life by transforming our normal daily activities — such as sitting down, standing up, washing, and dressing — into a cause for enlightenment by accompanying them with a bodhichitta motivation to benefit all sentient beings.
As Rinpoche explains in the text:
Anyone who is seeking the state of omniscience needs to attend to the many methods for collecting merits and purifying delusions. The Omniscient One, who was very skillful and had great compassion for us sentient beings, explained that even the activities that we normally do — such as eating, sleeping, sitting, walking, and doing our jobs — can become ways to collect unfathomable virtue and skies of merit. With mindfulness of bodhichitta, they can become not only beneficial to oneself, but beneficial to all sentient beings. The Buddha explained this to us who do not have a bodhichitta realization. This is how everything we do can be dedicated to become a cause of happiness for all sentient beings. This is something that we can practice immediately. Then all the activities we do in the breaks between our lam-rim meditations will be done with bodhichitta and the thought to make them beneficial for all sentient beings. Our daily activities will become a cause for us to attain omniscience so that we can liberate sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment.
Rinpoche has been teaching these mindfulness practices at various retreats and teaching events for the past several years and has been gradually adding more practices and advice to this collection. Rinpoche strongly emphasizes that these are beneficial practices to be done in daily life as well as in a retreat setting.
This free downloadable PDF is available through the FPMT Foundation Store.
Students who would like to delve deeper into this topic are invited to engage in the Living in the Path course “Taking the Essence,” which includes the module “Bodhichitta Mindfulness.” This Online Learning Center module includes video teachings from Lama Zopa Rinpoche as well as an introduction to the practices by Ven. Sarah Thresher, additional readings, access to a discussion forum, and other helpful resources for those wishing to study and practice this material in an organized way.
Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, training seminars, and scholarships, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.