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Rinpoche choosing flowers for offerings, Aptos, California, May 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
“The purpose of having this precious human body is not simply to achieve happiness for oneself, but to eliminate the suffering of all other beings and to bring them happiness as well,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche instructs in his book Transforming Problems Into Happiness, published by Wisdom Publications. “This is the purpose of each of our lives. This human body is precious because with it you have the capacity and opportunity to pursue spiritual development in order to serve other living beings.
“Everyone wants happiness; no one wants suffering. The happiness we need is not just ordinary, fleeting happiness; what we really need is ultimate happiness, the unsurpassed, unshakable happiness of enlightenment. When people go shopping, for example, they want the things that are the best, that will last the longest; in the same way, everyone wants the longest-lasting, highest happiness. According to their understanding of what level of happiness is achievable, everyone attempts to obtain whatever is, in their view, the highest happiness.
“The Buddha’s teachings, called the Dharma, tell us the highest happiness achievable is enlightenment. The only reason anyone would not want to achieve enlightenment is that they lack Dharma wisdom. Lacking Dharma wisdom means simply being unaware that there exists a happiness higher than ordinary happiness. Anyone who has encountered the Dharma and studied it sincerely knows that one can be liberated from the bondage of suffering and can experience peerless happiness, that one can put an end to all obscurations, and that one can attain all the realizations of a buddha. Of course a person who knows these things can be achieved wants to achieve them. …”
You can read more from this excerpt on Wisdom Publication’s website.
More information, photos and updates about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be found on Rinpoche’s homepage. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche via email, sign up to Lama Zopa Rinpoche News.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at the Light of the Path Retreat, Black Mountain, North Carolina, US, May 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Living in the Path, an FPMT study program, is continually evolving with course materials drawn from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s “Light of the Path” retreat teachings, an annual event hosted by Kadampa Center in North Carolina, USA. The initial courses are organized around edited transcripts and short video clips from these teaching events.
FPMT Education Services is happy to announce we have a new free module available to you! The Seven Limb Prayer module is comprised of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s precious teachings about the benefits related to each limb and how to practice each of the seven limbs in the most effective way. The seven-limb prayer is found in almost every practice text, particularly those related to guru yoga. This concise and powerful method was taught by the Buddha as a means to accumulate merit and purify negativities, creating the causes for success in practice, service, and daily life.
These teachings are extracted from the Light of the Path Retreat, September 2010, and from a letter of personal advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche to a student dictated in March 2012.
To Access the Free Seven Limb Prayer Module (LP Instruction 03)
1. Go to the Online Learning Center website.
2. If this is your first time using the site, you will need to create a login account for accessing the Online Learning Center. Instructions on how to do this can be found in the “Getting Started Guide.”
3. If you already have a login account, or after you have created a new account, you can then enroll in LP Instruction 03 using the enrollment key of: preliminary07
4. You can access the course here.
5. The “Getting Started Guide” also contains useful information on the technical requirements for the site, information on updating your profile and setting your user preferences and on navigation within the site.
6. Please contact the site administrator at onlineedu@fpmt.org if you have any questions or queries.
Please also note that as a Friend of FPMT at the Dharma Supporter level or higher, one can receive access to all programs and content on the Online Learning Center.
We hope you enjoy the online course!
Geshe Jampa Gyaltsen and Ven. Yonden performing the Nolsang incense puja at Kopan Monastery, Nepal.
FPMT Education Services is delighted to make available an important incense offering ritual (nolsang) which is a translation of Padmasambhava’s The Divine Blue Water Clearing Away Contamination. This practice has been made available at the request of Lama Zopa Rinpoche for students who need it.
The ritual is used to purify contaminations that arise from ignorance, broken commitments, disturbing thoughts and emotions, as well as a variety of other negativities which cause obstacles, illness and misfortunes to oneself, others and the environment.
Available in eBook, a4 and letter booklet formats.
Khadro-la, August 2011. Photo by Philippe Garric.
Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drönme first appeared to the international FPMT community through “Interview with a Dakini.” She’s since become known through the assistance she has been offering Lama Zopa Rinpoche since he manifested a stroke in 2011 and also through serving as an oracle at the Kalachakra initiation given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Bodhgaya, India, in January 2012. Here she talks about integrating lam-rim into daily life.
“In ordinary life, gaining wealth, food and shelter brings some pleasure at a physical level but not at a mental level. The worst suffering is mental suffering. Therefore, we have no choice but to learn how to transform such suffering. To do this, one needs to transform the mind. Wealth, rank and position can never handle or deal with mental suffering. Even having a large number of friends or guardians does not help because when faced with mental suffering, nothing can help except for mind-training.”
From Mandala October-December 2009.
Mandala brings you news and advice 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 on Mandala, consider becoming a Friend of FPMT, which supports our work.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Buddha Amitbha Pure Land, WA, April 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang
Light of the Path Retreat 2014, which takes place Sunday 3pm, May 4 to Sunday Noon, May 18, 2014, at YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly in Black Mountain, NC, is the third of a 5-year series of teaching retreats led by Lama Zopa Rinpoche based on Lama Atisha’s text, Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment.
You can enjoy all of these teachings in real time on live streaming video!
Please do take advantage of this opportunity to experience this retreat, even if you are unable to make it to North Carolina to attend in person.
Additionally, many resources and materials have been developed from the previous precious retreat teachings:
- All teachings from the 2009, 2010 and 2014 are available on the FPMT Online Learning Center.
- MP3 audio and mp4 video files are available for download in the Light of the Path Retreat Materials 2010: text, audio, video course. This course also contains the root text and other information associated with the retreat, including reviews, guided meditations, and the complete transcript of the retreat.
- The Living in the Path online program has been created from the Light of the Path retreat teachings of 2009 and 2010. Organized into structured modules you will find this, and other, programs on the FPMT Online Learning Center.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche does prostrations at Vulture’s Peak, the site of Buddha’s first teaching, India, February 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Calling the Guru from Afar is a heartfelt request for blessings to realize all the stages of the path to enlightenment, as well as a meditation on the nature of the guru.
FPMT Education Services is pleased to make available Lama Zopa Rinpoche chanting the long version of this prayer.
Also available as a free download is a practice booklet containing the long and short versions of Calling the Guru from Afar as well as Practicing Guru Devotion with the Nine Attitudes which is a short meditation that helps to develop the correct attitude toward one’s teacher.
The practice booklet is available in PDF & ebook format.
All public portions of the Vajrasattva initiation and oral transmission will be webcast live courtesy of Maitripa College.
FPMT Education Services makes available materials needed for these practices, which you purchase online at the FPMT Foundation Store.
The Preliminary Practice of Vajrasattva contains the short and long practice of Vajrasattva as well as Vajrasattva tsog. It also contains commentary, retreat advice, altar set-up, and retreat preliminaries.
The Preliminary Practice of Dorje Khadro text by Lama Zopa Rinpoche provides everything one needs to be able to do the complete ngöndro of Dorje Khadro, the recitation of the principal mantra 100,000 times coupled with extensive visualization and prayers. The book’s practice section includes the Dorje Khadro practice text, Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga and lam-rim and dedication prayers. In addition, the book contains teachings that contribute to a student’s understanding of how to best engage in this practice.
You can learn more about this teaching event schedule or register on the Maitripa website.
In 1975, FPMT founder Lama Yeshe explained why “meditation is simple” to a group of students in Bloomington, Indiana, United states. Mandala shared some of that teaching in the September-November 2002 issue:
Meditation is very simple. When hearing about meditation for the first time, you might think, “That must be very special; meditation couldn’t be for me but only for special people.” This just creates a gap between you and meditation.
Actually, watching television, which we all do, is a bit like meditating. When you watch television, you watch what’s happening on the screen; when you meditate, you watch what’s happening on the inner screen of your mind – where you can see all your good qualities, but all your inner garbage as well. That’s why meditation is simple.
The difference, however, is that through meditation you learn about the nature of your mind rather than the sense world of desire and attachment. Why is this important? We think that worldly things are very useful, but the enjoyment they bring is minimal and transient. Meditation, on the other hand, has so much more to offer – joy, understanding, higher communication and control. Control here does not mean that you are controlled by somebody else but rather by your own understanding knowledge-wisdom, which is a totally peaceful and joyful experience. Thus, meditation is very useful.
From Mandala September-November 2002
Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Riverside, Washington, US, April 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
“There is no question what to do to make your life meaningful. The most important thing is to practice Dharma, because everyone wants happiness and does not want suffering, even the tiniest insect does not want to suffer. In order to stop all the suffering (which is not wanted) and to cause all happiness (which is wanted) depends on abandoning the cause of suffering and practicing the cause of happiness. Therefore, there is nothing else – only Dharma.
“Therefore, you need to learn Dharma and practice Dharma. …”
– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from the page “A Meaningful Life” in “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book”
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 upon arriving in Sarnath, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
A new post on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive features Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice on purifying past karma. Rinpoche responds to a letter from a student diagnosed with breast cancer at length. Here’s an excerpt:
“… Even this life’s problems come from the wrong concept and wrong action. This life’s happiness also comes from the right concept, the correct way of thinking, and correct actions, pure actions. From that, inner happiness comes. So even this hour’s happiness, right now, if we think in a positive way, then we have happiness, but if we think in a negative way, then we have suffering. Even the person who got angry towards us in the past, who gave us harm in the past, who we regard as an enemy, maybe first we cherished that person and now we have renounced him. Maybe in the beginning we were attached and now totally the opposite.
“In the beginning we thought that person was the same as a holy being, a bodhisattva or buddha, or even just a good human being, then when he gets angry with us, provokes us, harms us, or even tries to kill us, we see him as an enemy. Actually we should see him as the most kind person; this person who is our enemy is our teacher of patience, for us to learn patience. Maybe we do meditation on patience, but here, this person is our practical teacher. We can do the action meditation of patience with him, so we have the opportunity to use him and to see him as most kind – kinder than someone who gives us a hundred thousand dollars. Just giving us a hundred thousand dollars, that alone doesn’t help us to be free, to have a happy death or to stop us being reincarnated in the hell realms or as a hungry ghost or animal.
“If we practice patience towards the person who is angry at us, who harms us, by thinking how extremely kind he is, then we don’t get reborn in the lower realms as a hell being, hungry ghost or animal. Also the enemy actually gives us the opportunity to create the cause for good rebirth and for our next life to be born as a deva or higher. Then also that person becomes the cause to cease all of our sufferings and to achieve ultimate happiness, full enlightenment, peerless happiness for sentient beings and to be able to free the numberless sentient beings from each realm from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to omniscience, ultimate happiness and full enlightenment. …”
Read the entire letter “Purifying Past Karma” online from the Archive’s “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book.”
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.
Foundation Service Seminar, October 2013 held at Jamyang Buddhist Centre London. The gathering drew more than 40 people from 17 countries for five full days of sessions on skillfully offering service within the FPMT mandala.
The next Foundation Service Seminar will be held at Institut Vajra Yogini, Marzens, France: Aug 12-16, 2014 with seminar facilitators Wendy Ridley and Francois Lecointre.
Register in English or French for this seminar which will explore how to best offer our skills and qualities in service. We investigate the purpose and mission of FPMT, what it means to be an FPMT center, and how that vision translates into action for centers, projects, and individuals.
Image: dreamstime.com
Jampa Jaffe, FPMT registered teacher, answers in the April-June 2014 issue of Mandala the question: why does Buddhism place so much emphasis on the mind?
In emphasizing the mind, Buddhism is stressing that when we look to a person, a thing or a situation for the solutions to our fundamental problems, we’re projecting outside what can only be found within.
In our everyday living, we too often behave like the person who has lost his keys along a dark street and yet searches for them beneath a streetlight on the corner, thinking it much easier to see them there. However, the reality is that no matter how long and hard he searches, he will never find what he’s looking for, because he’s looking in the wrong place.
There’s a simple story based on a verse from Shantideva’s A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life that illustrates Buddhism’s emphasis on the mind. There was a king in ancient times who took great pleasure in strolling about the countryside of his kingdom. One day, while out walking, he stepped on a thorn, injuring his foot. Returning to his palace in great pain, the king called together his ministers. “Look,” he exclaimed, “Look at my foot! This cannot be allowed to happen again! You must find a way whereby I can walk freely about my kingdom without the danger of hurting myself!” …
From Mandala April-June 2014