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Statue of Dharma King Songtsen Gampo created by Bertrand Cayla, Jokhang, Portland, Oregon, United States, 2011. Photo by Marc Sakamoto.
Two prayers by Dharma King Songtsen Gampo have been translated by Lama Zopa Rinpoche and are now available on FPMT.org.
Prayer to Chenrezig, Compassionate-Eye-Looking One and Prayer of Auspiciousness from the Mani Kabum both come from the Mani Kabum, a collection of teachings attributed to King Sontsen Gampo and focused on Chenrezig.
Dharma King Songtsen Gampo (c. 605-650), traditionally considered an emanation of Chenrezig, is the first of the three great Dharma kings, and is credited with introducing the Dharma to Tibet.
Prayer to Chenrezig, Compassionate-Eye-Looking One and Prayer of Auspiciousness from the Mani Kabum are also available by donation through the Foundation Store:
https://shop.fpmt.org/Prayer-to-Chenrezig-Compassionate-Eye-Looking-One-PDF_p_3137.html
https://shop.fpmt.org/Prayer-of-Auspiciousness-from-the-Mani-Kabum-PDF_p_3136.html
Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama with March 26-April 4 Introduction to Buddhism students, Dharamsala, India, March 2018. Photo courtesy Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Ven. Tenzin Kunphen, spiritual program coordinator, and Maria Nobuko Corrales, assistant spiritual program coordinator, Tushita Meditation Centre share an update from Dharamsala, India.
After completing a record-breaking 2017, we are enjoying a year of record-breaking of another sort: teachings and audiences with His Holiness the Dalai Lama!
His Holiness the Dalai Lama with April 11-20 Introduction to Buddhism students and April 12-20 Insight Into Emptiness students, Dharamsala, India, April 2018. Photo courtesy Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
In late March we received an invitation specifically for the students in our Introduction to Buddhism course to come to His Holiness’s temple for a private teaching. This being a first for Tushita, we were overjoyed to facilitate this precious opportunity for our students.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama with May 18-27 Introduction to Buddhism students, Dharamsala, India, May 2018. Photo courtesy Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
This also marked the first time Tushita students as a group were able to have their photo taken with His Holiness.
Our fortune then continued with public audiences in April, May, and June!
His Holiness the Dalai Lama with June 5-14 Introduction to Buddhism students, Dharamsala, India, June 2018. Photo courtesy Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
On April 16, 2018, while meeting with Indian and foreign tourists at the main Tibetan temple courtyard in Dharamsala, to our greatest delight, His Holiness specifically mentioned Tushita. He advised that our students should study Shantideva’s A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, especially chapters six and eight.
Watch His Holiness mention Tushita on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/DwM-_ECgpaM?t=20m13s
In the first half of 2018, we have already welcomed over 750 students from all over the world for our popular ten-day Introduction to Buddhism courses. Almost all of these courses were completely full, with additional students on waiting lists hoping to get a space in the course.
May 18-27 Introduction to Buddhism students with Ven. Tenzin Kunphen, Ven. Tony Beaumont, and Maya, Tushita Meditation Centre, Dharamsala, India, May 2018. Photo courtesy of Tushita Meditation Centre.
In May we had our largest course, in which we managed to squeeze 122 students!
Even our February course (the first of the season, at the end of our cold winter) had an unusually high turnout.
February 20-March 1 Introduction to Buddhism students with Ven. Tenzin Drolma and Maya, Tushita Meditation Centre, Dharamsala, India, May 2018. Photo courtesy of Tushita Meditation Centre.
For those unable to participate in our residential program, we have non-residential programs too. Six days a week we offer morning meditations, which are ever-popular. One day this May we had a whopping 150 students join our morning meditation session! We have also been happy to offer twice-weekly Dharma movie days and regular pujas.
June 20-29 Introduction to Buddhism students, Tushita Meditation Centre dining hall, Dharamsala, India, June 2018. Photo courtesy of Tushita Meditation Centre.
In the short breaks in between residential courses, we were delighted to offer six two-day short courses on How to Meditate led by Shahar Tene, which typically attract around 100 students. These have been a wonderful addition to our program for students unable to commit to a full ten-day Introduction to Buddhism course, as well as a helpful supplement for students before or after their ten-day courses.
For more 2018 highlights, see Tushita News July 2018:
http://tushita.info/news/news-july-2018/
To learn about Tushita Meditation Centre’s student demographics, visit their 2017 report:
http://tushita.info/news/who-are-tushitas-students-nationality-2017/
FPMT.org and Mandala Publications brings you news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and of activities, teachings, and events from over 160 FPMT centers, projects, and services around the globe. If you like what you read, consider becoming a Friend of FPMT, which supports our work.
Image from rigpawiki.org
Lhabab Duchen, one of the four great holy days of the Buddhist calendar, takes place this year on Wednesday, October 31.
Lhabab Duchen celebrates Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s return to Earth from the god realm Thirty-Three after teaching Dharma for several months to the gods there, including his mother, Mayadevi, who had died a week after Buddha’s birth and been reborn there. As a merit multiplying day, the karmic results of actions done on this day are multiplied 100 million times. This amazing result is sourced by Lama Zopa Rinpoche to the vinaya text Treasure of Quotations and Logic.
Specific advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche for practices to do on merit multiplying days can be found on FPMT.org, including advice to recite the Sutra for Remembering the Three Jewels. (Advice for merit multiplying days can also be found in French.) If you choose to recite the Sutra of Golden Light on this special day, you might like to report your recitations using the facility on the FPMT website, which you can find on the Sutra of Golden Light reporting page.
Please keep in mind that according to the late Kyabje Choden Rinpoche, one of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s gurus, the 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 merit multiplying days and other auspicious dates according to the time in India.
Special thanks to the Liberation Prison Project for preparing a Tibetan calendar with information on holy days and other important dates for avoiding or engaging in various activities.
Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.
Chanting the Names of Mañjushri, which is called Mañjuśrīnāmasaṃgīti in Sanskrit, is available as a PDF and in ebook formats on the FPMT.org sutra page.
Over 160 verses comprise the text, which is categorized as a tantra, but can be read by anyone without restrictions. This praise of Manjushri was taught by Buddha Shakyamuni at the request of Vajrapani. It is a central text in all Tibetan traditions and is often recited and memorized by students.
Students can also find on FPMT.org links to an alternative translation of the text by Buddhist scholar Alex Berzin and links to an audio recording of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s commentary and oral transmission of the text on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
PDF and ebooks formats of Chanting the Names of Mañjushri can also be acquired through the Foundation Store.
Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.
In the complimentary Living in the Path module “Making Offerings,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche gives inspiring explanations on how to take the essence of our precious human life by making offerings to the guru and the Three Rare Sublime Ones—the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.
“If you offer to a statue of Buddha, or a scripture, or a stupa, or a picture, no matter how big they are, no matter how small they are, if you offer to them one grain or one tiny flower… Even if it is without a bodhichitta motivation, even without Dharma, neither bodhichitta nor renunciation to achieve liberation from samsara, nor the motivation to achieve the happiness of future lives, not even that—without any Dharma motivation; even if the motivation is totally black, totally the eight worldly dharmas, seeking the happiness of this life, nothing else—if you offer one grain or one tiny flower to a holy object, no matter how big or small it is, the minute you offer it you collect [merit] and it becomes the cause of enlightenment. Immediately, it becomes the cause of enlightenment,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches in the module.
“Here, when [this text] talks about offerings becoming virtue and the cause of enlightenment, it doesn’t depend on the motivation being virtue. In these exceptional cases, like circumambulation and making offerings to even statues, stupas, or pictures of Buddha, it immediately becomes the cause of enlightenment. That means it becomes the cause of the happiness of future lives, not just the happiness of one life but hundreds of thousands of happinesses in future lives, such as a good rebirth and many things. It becomes many happinesses of future lives, then ultimate happiness—liberation from samsara; all happiness and, as I mentioned before, enlightenment.”
Watch “Offerings Cause Enlightenment” on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/2tlAmIvSYqg
“Making Offerings” is available on the FPMT Online Learning Center:
https://onlinelearning.fpmt.org/course/view.php?id=119
Living in the Path is an online lamrim course taught by Lama Zopa Rinpoche available through the FPMT Online Learning Center:
https://onlinelearning.fpmt.org/course/index.php?categoryid=5
Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.
Students can now find two new Vajrayogini texts—Quick Path to Khechara: An Abbreviated Daily Self-Initiation of Vajrayogini Naro Khechari and A Pleasing Uncontaminated Feast: An Abbreviated Tsog Offering of the Venerable Vajrayogini, the Powerful Lady Naro Khechari—through the Foundation Store.
Quick Path to Khechara is an abbreviated self-initiation manual composed by the Eighth Kirti Rinpoche, Rongpo Choje Lozang Thrinle Gyatso. As the text is very brief, it is recommended that students first familiarize themselves with Phabongkha Dechen Nyingpo’s extensive Vajrayogini self-initiation ritual in FPMT’s The Intermediate Practices of Vajrayogini.
In order to engage in this practice, a student must have completed a 100,000-mantra Vajrayogini nearing retreat of enabling actions together with the concluding peaceful burning offering ritual.
A Pleasing Uncontaminated Feast is an abbreviated tsog offering text written by Phabongkha Dechen Nyingpo. Being shorter than his extensive tsog offering ritual, and longer than Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s extremely abbreviated composition, this text is convenient for use as a medium-length version.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche presiding over tsog, Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, Bendigo, Australia, April 2018. Photo by Veb. Lobsang Sherab.
Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.
In the complimentary Living in the Path module “The Eight Mahayana Precepts,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche shows us the importance of taking and keeping these special one-day vows based on the Mahayana motivation of bodhichitta. If you have not previously received the lineage of the eight Mahayana precepts from a teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has given special permission to take the lineage from him via the video “Actual Ceremony for Taking the Precepts,” which is part of the course materials.
“Taking the eight Mahayana precepts is another way to make life meaningful, to take its essence all day and night, by taking vows,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche has taught. “It is so simple. It is just for one day. Just for one day. It makes it so easy. It’s not for a lifetime.”
In this short introductory video to the module, Ven. Paloma Alba explains the reason for taking the eight Mahayana precepts and the benefits of keeping them.
Watch “Taking the Eight Mahayana Precepts—An Introduction” on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/wDSbB3DHnsA
Ven. Paloma Alba (Tenzin Chokyi) did her first Buddhist course on the island of Ibiza in the Balearic Islands in 1982 and ordained in 1986. Since then she has offered service in a variety of FPMT centers in Spain, where she has also taught extensively. She is currently tutor for the FPMT Basic Program at Centro Nagarjuna Valencia in Valencia, Spain. Ven. Paloma is an FPMT registered teacher.
Living in the Path is an online lamrim course taught by Lama Zopa Rinpoche available through the FPMT Online Learning Center:
https://onlinelearning.fpmt.org/course/index.php?categoryid=5
Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche giving an oral transmission of the Vajra Cutter Sutra on Vulture’s Peak, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Did you know there is a Vajra Cutter Sutra resource page on FPMT.org? The page features translations of the Vajra Cutter Sutra (also known as Diamond Cutter Sutra or Diamond Sutra) into ten languages; links to audio CDs, MP3 downloads, and online courses; and a special dedication prayer written by Mipham Rinpoche that is recommended by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. The page even features an amulet-sized version of the sutra in Tibetan, suitable to be worn on the body.
In the Vajra Cutter Sutra, Buddha and a gathering of monks and bodhisattvas are in Shravasti in North India. Subhūti, one of the disciples, asks Buddha, “Bhagavān, how should one who has correctly entered the bodhisattva’s vehicle abide, how practice, how control the mind?” The sutra captures Buddha’s answer, touching extensively on the “wisdom gone beyond” and concluding with the famous verse: “As a star, a visual aberration, a lamp, an illusion, dew, a bubble, a dream, lightning, and a cloud—view all the compounded like that.”
“The Vajra Cutter Sutra is unbelievable,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches. “It is one of the most profitable practices, because the root of all sufferings, yours and others, is the ignorance holding ‘I’ as truly existent—even though it is empty of that; and the ignorance holding the aggregates as truly existent, even though they are empty of that. The only antidote to cut that, to get rid of that and through which to achieve liberation, the total cessation of the suffering causes—delusions and karma—is the wisdom realizing emptiness. This is the subject of the Vajra Cutter Sutra, emptiness. So, each time you read it, it leaves such a positive imprint. Without taking much time, without much difficulty, it is easy to actualize wisdom.”
Find the Vajra Cutter Sutra resource page and other sutras on FPMT.org:
https://fpmt.org/education/prayers-and-practice-materials/sutras/
https://fpmt.org/education/prayers-and-practice-materials/sutras/
Find the Vajra Cutter Sutra in various formats in the Foundation Store:
https://shop.fpmt.org/search.asp?keyword=vajra+cutter+sutra&search=
Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.
In 2009, a design competition was held to find a poster that perfectly captured Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s “Live with Compassion” quote. Rinpoche personally selected the design from Amitabha Buddhist Centre’s Kennedy Koh as the winner. After a few small modifications, the image was made available to students around the world.
Recently, Lama Zopa Rinpoche visited FPMT International Office and saw the poster hanging on the lobby wall. Rinpoche pointed to the compassion poster and mentioned that International Office should promote it all over the world.
Available through the Foundation Store, the Live with Compassion poster is best printed at a maximum height of 24 inches (60 cm). One idea is for students to print the image on bookmarks or t-shirts. Students should keep in mind that such items become holy objects and should be treated with respect according to tradition.
Find the Living with Compassion poster on the Foundation Store:
https://shop.fpmt.org/Live-with-Compassion-Poster–PDF_p_3074.html
Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.
Students can now find A Brief Meditation-Recitation on Guru Medicine Buddha, written and arranged by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, on the Foundation Store as a PDF. Rinpoche encouraged FPMT to make the text “immediately, immediately” available for the benefit of students around the world. Anyone can practice the text, with slight modifications for students without initiations.
A Brief Meditation-Recitation on Guru Medicine Buddha begins with requests to the Medicine Buddhas composed by Rinpoche and follows with recitation of their holy names; recitation of either—or all of—the long, middle-length, or short Medicine Buddha mantra; and recitation of the mantra of Tathagata Stainless Excellent Gold and other dharani-mantras, extracted from the Fifth Dalai Lama’s The Wish-Granting Sovereign: A Ceremony for Worshiping the Seven Sugatas. The practice concludes with prayers, requests, and dedications also authored by Rinpoche.
Rinpoche has consistently taught that Medicine Buddha practice is beneficial for anyone who is dying, sick, injured, or who has already died, and for success in general.
Find A Brief Meditation-Recitation on Guru Medicine Buddha on the Foundation Store:
https://shop.fpmt.org/A-Brief-Meditation-Recitation-on-Guru-Medicine-Buddha-PDF_p_3121.html
Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.
Lama Atisha’s Protection Stupa
Lama Zopa Rinpoche recently encouraged all students to keep copies of Lama Atisha’s Protection Stupa in their homes and offices to protect them from heavy mental pollution:
“My dear students looking for liberation and enlightenment for sentient beings,
“It is extremely important to have an image of this stupa with mantras because its benefits of giving protection come from Lama Atisha of Nalanda, where there were 300 great scholars and holy beings.
“The purpose of keeping an image of this stupa in your house or in your room is to protect you from the mental pollution, not yet discovered in the West, from those who, in particular, have broken samaya with their guru, belittled their guru, given rise to heresy or anger towards their guru, or who, after making a Dharma connection through receiving a lung, commentary, initiation, or vows, gave up their guru. These create so much mental pollution, which is the heaviest negative karma.
“If you meet, talk to, or receive teachings from that person, or bring other people to a place where that person has been, your mind gets polluted. You lose your spiritual achievements, your mind becomes more negative, it becomes more difficult for you to achieve realizations, and you get reborn in the lower realms. It is very dangerous.
“Also, the places where that person has been become polluted. The previous Kyabje Zong Rinpoche told us, during the First Dharma Celebration, that even the tap water in a place where that person has been becomes polluted. If you drink it, you get polluted, you lose any spiritual progression you have made, your mind degenerates, and you go to the lower realms.
“The external pollution from a car doesn’t cause you to be reborn in the lower realms, but this pollution does.
“You can also wear the image of this stupa as a protection amulet so that wherever you go, you are protected from this pollution.
“This is very important. It would be good for every FPMT center, service, and project to have this image in its gompa, office, or other public rooms, and on every level of its buildings.
“If you are new to Buddhism and don’t understand this, it doesn’t matter; just keep it in your room for the benefit of other people.”
Lama Atisha’s Protection Stupa is available as a PDF download and as pre-folded amulets through the Foundation Store. Proceeds from the sale of the download go to FPMT’s Stupa Fund, which supports Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s vast vision of constructing 100,000 stupas around the world for world peace.
https://shop.fpmt.org/Lama-Atisha-Protection-Mantra–Downloadable-PDF_p_1432.html
Read more about the history of the image and its benefits in Mandala‘s January-June 2017 article “Lama Atisha’s Protection Stupa to Keep Away Heavy Mental Pollution”:
https://fpmt.org/mandala/archives/mandala-for-2017/january/lama-atishas-protection-stupa-to-keep-away-heavy-mental-pollution/
Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.
Medicine Buddha statue at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington, US, June 2015. Photo by Chris Majors.
It is difficult to accept the inevitability of our own deaths or the deaths of our loved ones. And although avoiding death is not possible, it is possible to prepare for death and equip ourselves with tools to help those around us engage with their own deaths in the most beneficial way.
Essential Advice for Students
Lama Zopa Rinpoche had repeatedly taught that Medicine Buddha practice, such as the Medicine Buddha Puja, the Wish-Fulfilling Jewel, is the main spiritual activity to engage in before, during, and after death. FPMT now makes available Medicine Buddha ritual sets to help students better practice according to Rinpoche’s advice.
Rinpoche has recommended as an additional essential practice to recite Eight Prayers to Benefit the Dead, which is usually recited by Gelug monasteries to benefit those who have recently died.
Essential Advice for Centers
All FPMT centers, projects, and services are encouraged to have a least one student who has done the Heart Advice for Death and Dying course and knows how to use the Liberation Box, a collection of tools for the time of death.
This package is a collection of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s essential advice and commentaries for the time of death and for finding the deepest fulfillment in life. Teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche include, “The Nine-Point Meditation on Death,” “The Process of Dying,” “Preparing for Death,” “Practicing the Five Powers,” “Caring for the Dying and the Dead,” “Essential Activities at the Death Time,” and “Mantras to Benefit the Dying and Dead.” This collection also includes an MP3 CD of eleven hours of teachings on death by Ven. Sangye Khadro. In addition to the book and CD, this material is also available as a structured study program.
Heart Advice for Death and Dying is available as a hardcopy book, ebook, and FPMT Online Learning Center program, and as hardcopy and digital programs for hosting centers.
Liberation Box
This collection of tools for the time of death has been assembled according to Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice and contains powerful methods for ensuring a fortunate rebirth for those who have died or are in the process of dying. It is available as a hardcopy collection in English, French, or Spanish; or in an English-language digital edition.
Liberation Box, hardcopy collection with optional books
Heart Practices for Death and Dying
This condensed resource book, available in hardcopy and digital formats, provides the heart practices to do at the time of death, including the Medicine Buddha puja and the traditional eight prayers done in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries. This collection also contains the most powerful mantras to say for those who are dying or who have died, teachings on their precise benefits, as well as a sheet of mantras to place on the body of one who has died. It contains precious texts to benefit the minds of those who are dying by relieving pain and purifying negative karma.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche with ‘How to Enjoy Death,’ Osel Labrang, Sera Monastery, India, December 2015
Rinpoche’s Latest Book on Death and Dying
How to Enjoy Death
A unique new collection, How to Enjoy Death: Preparing to Meet Life’s Final Challenge Without Fear, brings together all the extensive commentary from Lama Zopa Rinpoche as well as a number of essential prayers, practices, and other materials that Lama Zopa Rinpoche has compiled over the years, skillfully edited by Ven. Robina Courtin.
“We Buddhists all know about death and impermanence, but when death comes into our lives we often panic and don’t know what to do to help,” said Ven. Robina. “Rinpoche lays out all the instructions so clearly, one step at a time, for how to help our loved ones: what to do in the months and weeks before death, what to do in the hours before death, at the time the breath stops, and in the three days as well as the forty-nine days after death, including transforming our loved one’s ashes into a holy object.”
All of the practices one needs to be prepared to face death are included, making this an essential reference for Tibetan Buddhist practitioners, caregivers, hospice workers, and chaplains.
Resource Page
The FPMT Death and Dying: Heart Practices and Advice webpage is kept up to date with all of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s latest advice and materials concerning death and dying.
Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, and training seminars, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.