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Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Amitabha Buddha Festival, Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Omak, Washington, United States. Photo by Chris Majors.
In the complimentary Living in the Path module “Bodhichitta Mindfulness,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche shows students how to take the essence of our precious human life by transforming our normal daily activities—walking, washing, dressing, etc.—into a cause of enlightenment by doing them with a bodhichitta motivation to benefit all sentient beings.
“The sutra explains that in the morning when one wakes up, the very first thing to do when one wakes up from sleep is to think, ‘May all sentient beings achieve the dharmakaya,'” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches. “The minute you wake up, you should think that. Maybe the eyes are still closed, the mind woke up but the eyes are still closed—I’m joking—remember that.”
“Then when you get dressed, think, ‘May all sentient beings wear the dress of shyness and shame.’ …
“When you put on a belt, think, ‘May sentient beings’ minds be bound by the three higher trainings.’ These are the higher trainings of morality, concentration, and special insight. Because that is what is said in sutra, when you release a belt, think, ‘May sentient beings be freed from the bondage of karma and delusions.’
“When you lay down to go to bed, ‘May sentient beings achieve the dharmakaya.’ Then the same thing when you see a stupa. When you see a stupa or other holy object, think, ‘May all sentient beings achieve the dharmakaya.’ When you see a holy object such as a Buddha statue, ‘May all sentient beings achieve enlightenment quickly.’ You can dedicate like that.”
“Bodhichitta Mindfulness” is available through the FPMT Online Learning Center:
https://onlinelearning.fpmt.org/course/view.php?id=120
Living in the Path is an online lamrim program 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.
Monks making light offerings, Bodhgaya, India, May 2008. Photo by Olivier Adam.
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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche blessing the ocean at a harbor in Singapore, November 2019. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
In the complimentary Living in the Path module “Atisha’s Light of the Path,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche briefly recounts the life story of Atisha and the circumstances under which Atisha composed Light of the Path to Enlightenment, and then explains the three capable beings and how to ensure that our actions become Dharma.
“All the 84,000 teachings, which come in three levels, all are integrated. [The three levels] created so much confusion in Tibet, but Atisha integrated all of this very simply, like lunch; like food made and set on the table for you to eat, so all you have to do is eat. Lama Atisha integrated them all in a few pages, very simply. He made it very clear how all this—the Hinayana, the Mahayana Paramitayana, the Mahayana Secret Mantra Vajrayana—is a graduated practice for one person to achieve enlightenment. There is nothing contradictory for that person. Everything is advice. Everything is practice. All three levels are a graduated practice for one person to achieve enlightenment, presented very simply in a few pages.”
Watch “Like Lunch on the Table” on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/YNpKGPSFjvY
“Atisha’s Light of the Path” is available through the FPMT Online Learning Center:
https://onlinelearning.fpmt.org/course/view.php?id=134
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 blessing food, Elista, Kalmykia, Russia, May 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
In the complimentary Living in the Path module “Offering Food and Drink,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche gives teachings on taking the essence of a perfect human life by making offerings of whatever food and drink we consume.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche is well known for the extensive visualizations, offering prayers, and dedications he does before eating and drinking. In fact, the actual eating and drinking seem of little importance to Rinpoche, whereas what is important to him is to use the food and drink he is about to consume as an opportunity to create the most extensive merit possible. In this teaching, Rinpoche begins with an extensive motivation based on the three principal aspects of the path. The actual visualization and prayers of the food offering practice are based on how Rinpoche himself does them, although apparently condensed, given that Rinpoche says, “Personally, I do like this, just to say a little bit.”
Watch “How I Offer Food – Motivation, Part 1” on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/FuYQhA3Cs_c
“Offering Food and Drink” is available through the FPMT Online Learning Center:
https://onlinelearning.fpmt.org/course/view.php?id=123
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.
Past and present members of the FPMT Spanish Translation Service, 2010. Photo courtesy of Marina Brucet.
Marina Brucet, former coordinator of the FPMT Spanish Translation Service (Servicio de Traducción), discusses the service’s return after a brief hiatus.
After a few years of pause, we are happy to announce that the FPMT Spanish Translation Service has returned. We will continue the task of translating and distributing FPMT Dharma practice texts and study programs in Spanish so that more and more students can benefit.
Quite a lot of practice texts have been translated or updated and made available in the Foundation Store.
Also, a new collaboration is starting with Mexico in order to adapt the texts to the Spanish in different regions. We have inaugurated translations into Catalan, starting with the Heart Sutra (el Sutra del cor) and others.
Teresa Vega will continue now with the coordination of the FPMT Spanish Translation Service. We feel a deep gratitude towards the people who, on a volunteer basis, have and are making it possible; towards Isabel Arocena, who is making it possible thanks to her incredible generosity; and especially towards those who began the FPMT Spanish Translation Service and started this marvelous and beneficial task—Beatriz Guergué and Ven. Nerea Basurto.
Después de unos años de pausa, estamos muy contentos de anunciar que el Servicio de Traducción de la FPMT hispana ha empezado a funcionar de nuevo. Continuaremos la labor de traducir y distribuir los textos de práctica de dharma de la FPMT, así como sus programas de estudio, para que más y más estudiantes se puedan beneficiar de ello.
Se han traducido y actualizado bastantes textos de práctica, que se han puesto a disposición en la tienda en línea de la Foundation Store.
Además, se ha empezado una colaboración con México para adaptar los textos al español de distintas regiones, y se han inaugurado traducciones al catalán, empezando por el Sutra del cor y otros.
Teresa Vega continuará a partir de ahora con la coordinación del Servicio de Traducción. Nos sentimos enormemente agradecidos a las personas que, de forma voluntaria, lo han hecho y lo están haciendo posible; a Isabel Arocena, quien lo hace posible gracias a su increíble generosidad; y especialmente a aquellas personas que iniciaron el Servicio de Traducción y empezaron esta maravillosa labor, de tan gran beneficio, Beatriz Guergué y V. Nerea Basurto.
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.
All print copies of FPMT education materials are now offered at cost!
Find these and other print titles in the Foundation Store:
- Medicine Buddha Ritual Set for Pujas
- The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment) with Additional Practices
- The Preliminary Practice of Altar Set-up & Water Bowl Offerings
- The Preliminary Practice of Vajrasattva
- The Preliminary Practice of Dorje Khadro
- The Preliminary Practice of Tsa-Tsas
- How to Make Charity to Ants
- Heart Advice for Death and Dying
Find scores of print titles in the Foundation Store. All are available until December 31, when the store goes digital-only:
https://shop.fpmt.org/Hardcopies_c_549.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.
“Your compassion is the source of happiness even of the animals and people that you meet in everyday life,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches in Prayer to the Six-Syllable Great Compassionate One, a translation of and commentary on Tsultrim Zangpo’s eloquent praises with mantra recitation to Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Compassion. “Without compassion, there are personality/ego clashes and many other problems: anger, jealousy, and many other things. Without compassion, life gets trapped into problems like a mouse trapped in a cage, or an elephant drowning in mud and unable to get out, or a fly who goes into a spider’s web and gets completely caught and then eaten by the spider, or a fly who has entered into a candle and gets completely wrapped up with hot wax and drowns, dead. Life gets completely caught up in problems and continues like that, and then you die—just like that fly. This is the main reason why one needs to practice compassion. Therefore, compassion is the most important Dharma practice in life and the most important meditation.”
“… In order to develop great compassion, you need an understanding of the Buddha’s teachings on how to develop compassion. Thus, being able to recite by heart and meditate on these teachings alone is not enough in order to achieve realization. You also need to have realizations with the support of the Compassion Deity’s blessing. This requires you to practice and do the meditation-recitation of the Compassion Buddha, Avalokiteshvara.”
Print copies of the booklet are available through the Foundation Store until December 31, when the store goes digital-only:
https://shop.fpmt.org/Prayer-to-the-Six-Syllable-Great-Compassionate-One-_p_862.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.
“When performing offerings, you can offer to the merit field not only those offerings you have made at the altar and those mentally transformed, but also you can offer all the beautiful flowers, lakes, parks, the sun and moon—all the beautiful things, which are your own karmic appearance, the various sense objects you see in your view,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches in The Preliminary Practice of Altar Set-up and Water Bowl Offerings. “You can think of all of those. When you offer light, you need not necessarily think of only the one or two butter-lamps you have lit, but however many lights you have on in your room. The clearer and brighter the light is, the better the offering. If it dispels more darkness the effect is greater. The external effect is greater so the inner effect of dispelling ignorance and developing wisdom is greater.”
“When I travel, especially when I stay in hotels, I think it is a waste to not use all the lights! Especially if the place is cold it helps in keeping warm! Anyway, one has to pay for however many days one stays, so this is a way to make great business in accumulating inconceivable merit for much temporal and ultimate happiness! You can offer as many lights as you can see in the rooms.
“Make offerings to every single holy object and every actual living bodhisattva and buddha in the ten directions. That also includes the many holy objects such as pictures and statues found in every practitioner’s room. Firstly, making one offering to one buddha has unbelievable merit. And secondly, as I explained before, the internal phenomenon of karma is much more expandable in comparison to external things. I have given the example of how from one small bodhi tree seed thousands of branches and thousands of thousands of seeds come, but that is nothing compared to how karma expands. So each time you make an offering of even one tiny flower, or one incense stick, think that you are making an offering to every single holy object and actual living holy beings in all ten directions.”
The practice of offering 100,000 water bowls is one of nine preliminary practices or “ngöndros” performed in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. The preliminary practices are designed to accumulate merit and purify negativities in order to quickly generate realizations on the path. They are also done in preparation for longer tantric retreats. The nine preliminaries are to do 100,000 repetitions related to the following practices: prostrations, mandala offerings, guru yoga, Vajrasattva, Damtsig Dorje, Dorje Khadro, tsa-tsas, water bowl offerings, and refuge.
Print copies of the booklet are available through the Foundation Store until December 31, when the store goes digital-only:
https://shop.fpmt.org/The-Preliminary-Practice-of-Altar-Set-up-Water-Bowl-Offerings-_p_339.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.
Image from rigpawiki.org
Lhabab Duchen, one of the four great holy days of the Buddhist calendar, takes place this year on November 19.
Lhabab Duchen celebrates Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s return to Earth from the God Realm of the Thirty-Three after teaching Dharma for several months to the gods, 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 FPMT.org, 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.
On merit multiplying days, the FPMT Puja Fund sponsors, on behalf of the entire FPMT, 6,000 monks at Sera Lachi; 3,400 monks at Ganden Lachi; 4,200 monks at Drepung Lachi; 650 monks at Gyurme Tantric College; and 600 monks at Gyuto Tantric College to perform various prayers and pujas. These prayers are dedicated to all FPMT centers, projects, and services; all students, volunteers, and those who offer service in FPMT; and to all beings in general. Offerings are also made to all of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s gurus and to sangha in FPMT international sangha communities. On Lhabab Duchen specifically, the FPMT Puja Fund additionally sponsors 400 nuns at Kopan Nunnery and 370 monks at Kopan Monastery to perform Drugchuma (64 offerings to Kalarupa), Medicine Buddha puja, and Zangcho Monlam (King of Prayers).
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.
First thangka from a series of fifteen depicting the life of Lama Tsongkhapa, from “Cittamani Rosary Spreading the Buddha’s Teachings”
Lama Tsongkhapa Day, or Ganden Ngamchoe, is a celebration of the anniversary of Lama Tsongkhapa’s parinirvana. It is celebrated on the 25th day of the 10th month of the Tibetan calendar. This year, Lama Tsongkhapa Day falls on December 21 and is the 600th anniversary.
To honor the anniversary, the Geluk International Foundation, on December 30, 2018, proclaimed 2019 to be the International Year of Tsongkhapa.
In response to the proclamation, Lama Zopa Rinpoche is strongly encouraging FPMT centers, projects, and services to arrange Lama Tsongkhapa Day celebrations tailored to their communities and resources. To support this request, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has compiled various prayers authored by Lama Tsongkhapa or written in his honor.
FPMT center, projects, and services may use this webpage, which captures Rinpoche’s complete advice, to plan their events. Individual students unable to attend FPMT center events can use the same resources to celebrate individually.
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.
Sanghata Sutra
The Sanghata Sutra is a Mahayana sutra containing stories illustrating the power of the bodhisattva wish and the power of past and present actions to produce expansive results. Imbued with the blessings of Shakyamuni Buddha’s prayer, recitation of this sutra produces a great mass of positive karma that can quickly ripen, even in this life. Print copies of the sutra are available through the Foundation Store until December 31, when the store goes digital-only.
“Probably I don’t need to tell you what the text says about how much merit you collect each time you hear this sutra,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche remarks. “Each time you hear it, how much merit do you collect? First of all, one buddha has completed the merit of wisdom and the merit of virtue—there is nothing more to collect … and then how many buddhas? The number of buddhas equaling the number of sands of grain in the Ganga River times twelve. And these sand grains are not ordinary grains of sand. It is explained in the teachings, in the great enlightened Phabongkha Rinpoche’s notes, that these grains are made of extremely subtle atoms. There are seven kinds of subtle atoms, water atoms, earth atoms, and so forth. These sand grains are much, much finer than what we usually think.
“In addition to that, when it comes to talking about the benefits of bodhichitta, or the benefits of the Arya Sanghata Sutra, the Ganga does not refer to the Indian River Ganges. It refers to the Pacific Ocean. Now, that many numbers of buddhas times twelve. The merit of just one set of buddhas equaling the number of sand grains in the River Ganga, even just one set—how much merit that is … is beyond words, unimaginable. Even just the merit that one buddha has collected is beyond words. So, now, beyond that, the merit that you collect every time you hear the Arya Sanghata Sutra is equal to twelve times the merit of the number of buddhas as there are sand grains in the River Ganga.
“So, that is just by hearing it. This means that anyone hearing it—animals, frogs, birds, so no question about pets like your beautiful cat, your darling cat, even spirits—collects that much merit. Can you imagine? It is like an impossible thing in the life that happens. When those animals, your cat and other animals, hear you recite Buddha’s teachings, it definitely makes them to receive higher rebirth and to meet Dharma.
“The very minute you hear it, the five uninterrupted negative karmas—the extremely heavy negative karmas that right after death, immediately without interruption of another life, you get born into hell; you get reborn in the lowest hot hell, which has the heaviest suffering of the lower realms, of which the life span lasts for one intermediate eon—those get completely purified. This happens even for the sentient beings who hear the sutra, the minute they hear the sutra. …”
Find the Sanghta Sutra in the Foundation Store:
https://shop.fpmt.org/Sanghata-Sutra-English-_p_603.html
Learn more about the Sanghata Sutra on FPMT.org:
https://fpmt.org/education/teachings/sutras/sanghata-sutra-in-various-languages/
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.
A Daily Meditation on Shakyamuni Buddha, specifically compiled by Lama Zopa Rinpoche for beginner Buddhist practitioners, is available in print from the Foundation Store. Two years ago, Lama Zopa Rinpoche reviewed and updated the previous edition with the help of Ven. Ailsa Cameron, a long-time editor for Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche reorganized many of the prayers based on his current way of doing them and, in particular, added an extensive explanation of the visualizations to be done while taking refuge. Drawn from Phabongkha Rinpoche’s Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, for each of the objects of refuge—Guru, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—there are visualizations for purifying negative karma, increasing qualities, and coming under the guidance of that object of refuge.
Subtitled “How to Meditate on the Graduated Path to Enlightenment,” the practices contained in this booklet prepare the mind for lamrim meditation by purifying negative karma and collecting extensive merit—the two main causes for attaining realizations.
This practice can also be used as a basis for engaging in the preliminary practices of accumulating 100,000 prostrations, mandala offerings, and so forth.
Find A Daily Meditation on Shakyamuni Buddha in the Foundation Store:
https://shop.fpmt.org/A-Daily-Meditation-on-Shakyamuni-Buddha_p_78.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.
