Study & Practice News

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!” …

Read more …

From Mandala April-June 2014

Lama Zopa Rinpoche doing korwa at the Mahabodhi Temple, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.

“… On the basis of [reflecting on the lam-rim], we should generate the good heart, bodhichitta, the thought of benefiting others. This is our best refuge, especially for those of us whose lives are very busy, who don’t have much time for sitting or other traditional forms of practice. On the basis of reflecting on impermanence and death, we should make the good heart the main object of refuge in our lives. This allows all our actions to become Dharma, the cause of enlightenment and the cause of happiness for all sentient beings. Therefore, we should lead our lives with this attitude, the thought of benefiting all sentient beings.

“If you recite a Vajrasattva mantra once with bodhichitta you get the same benefit as you do from reciting 100,000 without it. If you make one light offering with bodhichitta, you get the same amount of merit as you do from making 100,000 light offerings without it. If you make charity of one dollar to a sentient being – a beggar or a homeless person – with bodhichitta, you get the same amount of merit as you do from making charity of $100,000 without it.

“It is said in the scriptures that if the sentient beings of three galaxies – the Tibetan term is tong-sum, but I’m not exactly sure how best to translate it, you should check for yourselves – all build stupas of the seven precious substances, such as gold, diamonds and so forth, and fill the whole world with these stupas, the merit of that is far less than that created by just one person offering a tiny flower to the Buddha with bodhichitta motivation. The person making this small offering with bodhichitta motivation creates far more merit than three galaxies of sentient beings covering the world with stupas made of the seven precious substances without it.

“Try to imagine this. If you build just one stupa you create unbelievable merit. It directs your life to enlightenment and is an amazing purification. So here we have three galaxies’ worth of sentient beings, each one building a stupa of the seven precious substances – not with bricks and mortar but with precious jewels – and covering the world with these. Nevertheless, the merit of one person offering a tiny flower to the Buddha with bodhichitta motivation creates far more merit than that.

“Thinking about this should inspire you to make bodhichitta your heart practice. It transforms your life like iron into gold or kaka into diamonds. Bodhichitta motivation gives your life its greatest possible meaning and makes every single action of your daily life as beneficial as it can possibly be. You should remember bodhichitta from morning to night, twenty-four hours a day. Hold it as your most precious possession, as your wish-fulfilling jewel. You should cherish your bodhichitta motivation above all else; remember it constantly and practice it at every moment. …”

– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from The Joy of Compassion, “Chapter One: Living with Compassion,” published by the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive

Learn more about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche and his beneficial activities by visiting Rinpoche’s homepage, where you will find links to Rinpoche’s schedule, new advice, recent video, photos and more.

The Eight Verses of Thought Transformation is one of the most important texts from a genre of Tibetan spiritual writings known as lojong (mind training).

This root text was written by the eleventh-century meditator Langri Tangpa Dorje Senghe. His Holiness the Dalai Lama refers to this work as one of the main sources of his own inspiration and includes it in his daily meditations.

FPMT Education Services is happy to offer this text as a download  as an eBook.

This English translation is by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and includes the Tibetan phonetics.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche walking up to Vulture’s Peak, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.

“If you are performing the daily actions of your life with two attitudes, you are getting close to enlightenment. The two attitudes are: 1) having a sincere heart, doing social service with compassion (working for others); and, 2) meditating on the lam-rim (the gradual path to enlightenment). This may not mean actually meditating, but living your life with lam-rim, in order to purify and collect merit, and then on top of that practicing tantra, in order to achieve enlightenment quickly, or at least to prepare the mind, by leaving positive imprints every day. Social service means doing something for others, doing it from your heart. Even if it is only a little help that you give, you still get real satisfaction, like you have done something meaningful in your life. You have done something positive. Then, every day, every moment, every second, you are getting closer to enlightenment. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche making an offering to a beggar on the way up to Vulture’s Peak, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.

“Otherwise, if you just live your life only thinking about your own pleasure, trying to achieve it for yourself, with attachment, then the main aim of your life is you. You are looking for pleasure for yourself, sexual pleasure and so forth, with attachment, and from this comes only pain. Everything just becomes painful.

“There is the pain of separation, where you can’t stand to be away from the person you are attached to. Then, each day, your feelings becomes stronger, until the attachment becomes unbearable. Then there comes the pain of jealousy toward others. You don’t want others to have a connection. You have so many worries and fears, and it becomes so much suffering.

“If your life does not have these two things in them (social service or lam-rim) then no matter how much you meditate, if it is not done with lam-rim, or by doing social service, doing work for others, then instead you are only doing it for yourself, and your whole life gets tied up with attachment, to sex and other things. Then there is nothing positive in your life, now or in the future. Your life will become dark, because your whole life is lived with the self-cherishing thought, with desire, attachment and clinging to this life, and all of these are non-virtues. So when you die, you don’t have any positive thoughts, and you are not able to renounce life. …”

– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from “Dealing with Attachment” on “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 giving the oral transmission of the Vajra Cutter Sutra on Vulture’s Peak, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, during the annual lam-rim course at Kopan in 2000, gave the oral transmission of the Heart Sutra and the Vajra Cutter Sutra. Here is an unedited transcript from the first day of teaching he offered at the course. In it, Rinpoche explains the importance of correctly understanding emptiness, which is the subject of the two sutras:

As I mentioned before, I’ll repeat again, we need to, must remove the imprint of delusion. For that, need to study teachings on emptiness, right view. Have to realize emptiness. Not just what people call “emptiness,” not just any kind of emptiness, what people call “emptiness,” even Dharma books – what anybody calls “emptiness,” not that. It has to be the right one. It has to be right one because the root of samsara, root of the suffering, only one very specific wrong concept, very specific wrong concept. There’s not many roots of samsara; there’s one typical, there’s one specific ignorance: even though the “I” exists in mere name, merely imputed by the mind, that’s how – it’s not that the “I” doesn’t exist. “I” exists. It exists being merely labeled by the mind. That’s how it exists. That’s what the “I” is. What is “I” is that. That’s all.

By realizing ultimate nature of “I,” after that, how you come to realize, by realizing absolute truth of the “I” then the next, as a result, you realize conventional truth of the “I.” How the “I” exists you come to know. You come to discover what is the “I.” How it exists you come to know that it exists being merely imputed by the mind.

So when you discover “I” this is how you see – other than that is an hallucination. “I” other than that, what we believe, what appears to us, totally hallucination, false “I.”

So, therefore, there’s a very specific root of suffering, ignorance: a concept. I’m not going to go into details. We allow our mind when – twenty-four hours our mind continuously impute “I.” Our mind imputes “I.” …

You can read the entire transcript of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings at the 33rd Kopan Course in November 2000 on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive, which preserves the teachings of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

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.

1,000-Arm Avalokiteshvara (Tib: Chenrezig) statue, Maitripa College Jokhang, Portland, OR. Photo by Marc Sakamoto.

FPMT Education Services is please to announce the release of a new prayer and praise to Avalokiteshvara.

Praise and Prayer to Noble Avalokiteshvara: Bringing Forth the Rains of Happiness and Well-Being by Losang Kalsang Gyatso, the Seventh Dalai Lama, was translated by Gavin Kilty in accordance with the commentary of Konchog Jigme Wangpo.  

Avalokiteshvara (Chenrezig in Tibetan), is renowned as the embodiment of compassionate activity. The mantra of Chenrezig is the most widely recited mantra in Tibetan Buddhism and has great power for developing a good heart.

Praise and Prayer to Noble Avalokiteshvara: Bringing Forth the Rains of Happiness and Well-Being is available from the FPMT Foundation Store in eBook, a4, and letter booklet formats.

Mandala Publications has just released the April-June 2014 print and online issue of the magazine. Both versions offer a resource guide from FPMT Education Services including several resources available to help one set up, or enrich, a daily Buddhist practice.

Included you will find information on, Advice and Practices from Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Preliminary Practices, Essential Daily Practice Materials, and other links to helpful resources and materials.

More….

Lama Tsongkhapa of Tibet, the founder of the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and the Monlam Chenmo festival.

Days one through fifteen of the first month of the Tibetan calendar, during which Monlam takes place, mark a period when Lord Buddha performed many miracles, beginning with Losar (the Tibetan New Year) on the first day and culminating on the fifteenth day, Chotrul Duchen (the Day of Miracles). 

Losar took place this year on March 2, and Monlam continues through the Day of Miracles on Sunday March 16.

 Losar is the most important yearly celebration in Tibetan Buddhist culture. The annual Tibetan prayer festival, Monlam Chenmo, or the Great Prayer Festival, was established by Lama Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, in 1409. The first two weeks of the new year, Monlam, commemorate the time when the Buddha displayed his power by performing a number of miracles. Lama Tsongkhapa chose the Monlam Chenmo to coincide with the anniversary of incredible events in Shakyamuni Buddha’s life traditionally celebrated during the first two weeks of the lunar new year.

The new year commemorates a time of increase in virtuous activity. Any actions done during that period of time, both auspicious and harmful, are multiplied in their power. Karmic results are multiplied by one hundred million, as cited by Lama Zopa Rinpoche in the Vinaya text Treasure of Quotations and Logic. It is a very powerful time to practice and increase one’s commitment to both practice and study.

Please keep in mind: According to Ven. Choden Rinpoche, one of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachers, 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 Buddha Days and other auspicious dates according to the time in India.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has recommended practices for these special days.  You can find Rinpoche’s advice on Monlam collected here (on Rinpoche’s Advice page, under Buddha Multiplying Days), specific advice for practices to do on the Buddha Multiplying days here, and a calendar of all the dates here.

Special thanks to the Liberation Prison Project for preparing the Tibetan Calendar.

If you decide 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 that on the Sutra of Golden Light reporting page.

Manjushri is the buddha of wisdom and wields a flaming sword that cuts through our confusion, doubts and internal obstacles.

FPMT Education Services is happy to release this revised and reformatted version of “A Meditation on Orange Manjushri.” This practice includes the short sadhana written by the 5th Dalai Lama as well as, “Practice to Receive the Seven Types of Wisdom.” Excellent for developing wisdom and clarity, improving one’s memory, and for understanding and explaining Dharma to others.

Available through the FPMT Foundation Store in eBook, a4, and booklet letter formats.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche does prostrations at Vulture’s Peak, the site of Buddha’s first teaching, India, February 2, 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

The most important thing for this life’s happiness, especially for the sentient beings you meet, is to have the thought:

I am the servant and they are the masters. I am the servant and they are the kings. They are the masters and I am like the dog. Sentient beings are the ones from whom I have received all my happiness. They are the dearest and most kind.

They are the ones from who all opportunities come, in relation to whom I have the opportunity to purify all my negative karma, create all the merit, and attain enlightenment. So they are the kindest of all. I should use my body, speech and mind to serve others, especially the people of the [Dharma] center, as well as all the animals and insects.

This is also the attitude one should have with one’s family, or if you are a teacher or the leader of a company, etc.

– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from Service as a Path to Enlightenment, from FPMT Education Services

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.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche offering money to the beggars on the way up to Vulture’s Peak. Rinpoche asks them to recite OM MANI PADME HUM, India, February 2, 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kusang.

“Normally, worldly business people think that the best way to invest is by doing business. But that is only certain when you make a profit. Until then, it’s uncertain. My own feeling is the most reliable investment is to offer money to monasteries and offer charity to sentient beings. This way, even though the result of the investment, the income, doesn’t appear right now, it is 100% certain that it will be received in the near future.

“The result of karma is that not only do you receive the income back, but the result manifests in various forms, various instances of happiness. The karmic result is so much more than the profit you would get from business. The result of karma is expandable, not just in one lifetime, but hundreds of thousands of lifetimes, and can also expand up to enlightenment.

“This way, there is no loss at all. In the case of business, there is uncertainty until you actually make a profit. I feel this way, investing by making charity or offerings, is more satisfying. Then, not only do you get the result of whatever you achieve, but others get the benefit also. This is something to think about.”

– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from “Investing for Real Profit,” on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive

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.