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Study & Practice News
By Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Zopa Rinpoche
To love oneself is not contradictory to what Mahayana Buddhism teaches. The Mahayana teachings are not saying one should not love oneself. Renouncing oneself and cherishing others is not contradictory to loving yourself. In fact, practicing the Mahayana teaching, bodhichitta, is the best way to love yourself, to take care of yourself.
Whatever we do with our body, speech, and mind is for happiness. Even the activities of the tiniest insects, like the ants we see running around and keeping so busy, are also to achieve happiness. By looking at ourselves and at other living beings, we can see that it is the same: whatever we do is to achieve happiness.
A “problem” is what we do not want to experience and “happiness” is what we want to achieve. With this mind we can stop the problems, stop all the undesirable experiences, and with this mind we can achieve every happiness. Why is this? Because problems and happiness do not come from outside. The creator of problems and happiness is oneself in past lives. Therefore, with this mind all our problems can be stopped and we can achieve temporal day-to-day happiness and ultimate happiness, full enlightenment. …
From Mandala April-May 2006
Lama Yeshe: “You’re a fish swimming through water.” Photo by Carol Royce-Wilder.
If you recognize non-duality, you’ll have no fear. All fear and insecurity comes from not being realistic, from the wrong conception that holds fearful objects as concrete self-entities. A story from the life of Tibet’s great yogi, Jetsun Milarepa, illustrates this point.
Once Milarepa left his cave to collect wood, and when he returned, he saw a terrifying face with big eyes glaring at him. It blew his mind. But he looked carefully at the face and meditated on it as illusory, and later wrote a song about this experience. By removing the conception that identified that horrible image as a concrete self-entity, it disappeared. This is not a fairy tale; this is a meditator’s experience.
People scare themselves with thoughts of ghosts and demons. It is all superstition, the wrong conception believing in a self-entity There’s no such thing. But when you have a superstitious belief, for some reason it manifests. So you say, “It’s real. I saw it.” What you you saw is important? That’s completely ridiculous. What you see is absolutely unimportant. You need to know that. People in the West set incredible store by what they see; they really do believe that seeing is believing, that what they see is real. This basic misconception also engenders a kind of pride: “I saw that he is this, therefore, he is this.” “I saw” makes your ego proud. This is a completely wrong conception.
From Mandala February-March 2006
FPMT Education Services is happy to offer a free commentary on the Praise to the Twenty-One Taras by Ven. Geshe Dawö.
This commentary was based on the commentary by Ngulchu Dhamabadhra called the A Bouquet of Utpala Flowers Captivating Minds, and other sources.
It was later supplemented with passages from the First Dalai Lama’s commentary on the Twenty-one Taras, called Precious Garland, as well as some additional quotes from Ngulchu’s commentary.
You may download the eBook version from the FPMT Foundation Store.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche, California, September 2013. Photo by Chris Majors.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche has been diligently working on a complete daily practice for students for several years. FPMT Education Services is very pleased to announce that this advice, Daily Meditation, is now available. This practice is the basis of what students, from new to advanced, will be advised to undertake as daily practice. This is an essential practice for all students.
Every day we have the opportunity to set our aspirations clearly before we engage with the world. As Lama Zopa Rinpoche advises, “In everyday life after the eyes open [on waking] set a Dharma intention and especially bodhichitta [motivation] by thinking, ‘Until I achieve enlightenment and until I die, especially today, may the activities of my body, speech and mind—listening, reflecting, meditation practice, walking, sleeping, eating, sitting, working and so forth not become the cause of suffering and become the cause of happiness, especially the cause of full enlightenment, i.e. the method to bring happiness to sentient beings.’”
In this essential practice, Daily Meditation, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has carefully and kindly compiled, and in many cases provided translation for, the prayers, practices, and meditations needed to start one’s day, or activities, with a perfect Dharma intention and bodhichitta motivation. While mornings are an ideal time to set up one’s aspirations for the day, students are encouraged to engage in this practice at any time, whenever one is able.
The new Daily Meditation is a revision of the Morning Prayers included in Essential Buddhist Prayers V1. This meditation includes a new version of the prayer A Direct Meditation on the Graduated Path, Containing all the Important Meanings translated by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, as well as a new translation of selected verses from Shantideva’s Bodhisattvacharyavatara by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Other additions and new arrangements have been made to this meditation – it is a unique new practice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Available now as an eBook (non-reflowable PDF), a small beautiful hard-copy is forthcoming soon.
You may also read Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s most recent advice for Actualizing Realizations on the Path.
The Lam-Rim Merit Field.
The existence of the complete Buddhist path to enlightenment in our world depends solely upon those who have generated both the intellectual understanding of the teachings and the realizations of the path within their minds. Those who have done this are the lineage lamas.
During the practice of Lama Chopa, we invoke all the lamas of the graduated path lineage beginning with Shakyamuni Buddha himself, extending to our present direct teachers who have shown us the path. We pay homage to them, make offerings, and request each of them to please bless our minds with the same realizations that they themselves have generated. By offering sincere, heartfelt requests, we make our minds ripe to receive the full blessings of this precious lineage and quickly actualize the realizations we need to attain enlightenment. If we wish to experience realizations quickly, the practice of Lama Chopa is indispensable.
We are pleased to announce a new eBook edition of the Lama Chopa without the Jorcho practices. It contains the essential additional prayers recommended by Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
You can also read Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s commentary on this important practice.
Publishing Dharma books and materials is a central mission of FPMT Education. Eight publishers have taken this mission to task and we are thrilled to announce that FPMT’s oldest publisher, Wisdom Publications, has launched a new content-rich website.
The clean new design makes it easier than ever for readers to find the books and information they want and to share it with others.
New site features include:
- Expanded book pages, complete with excerpts and tables of contents. Browse before you buy.
- In-depth author pages containing biographies, photos, and social media links.
- Books organized into special interest collections including Wisdom Academics, Mindful Living, Tibetan Buddhism, Theravada, Zen, Buddhism and Psychology and Children’s, making browsing simpler than ever.
- The Wisdom Blog, packed with book excerpts, quotes, interviews, original posts, and more to engage the audience.
Additionally, Wisdom Publications is now offering DRM-free ebooks for sale on the site. The books are delivered simultaneously in three formats (PDF, ePub, and Mobi), allowing readers to download them onto multiple devices and preserve them in their personal libraries for future device migration.
www.wisdompubs.org
Shakyamuni Buddha line drawing by Robert Beer.
Shakyamuni Buddha Puja – The Source of Good Collections: A Rite of Homage, Worship, and Prayer to the Teacher, the King of Sages, Remembering His Previous Lives and Biography by Ngawang Paldan is an extensive puja including elaborate offerings, praises to Shakyamuni Buddha, and homage to Shakyamuni Buddha’s previous lives and detailed biography. Translation by Martin Willson.
Available in eBook format from the FPMT Foundation Store.
A statue of Lama Atisha was found inside the stupa of Lama Tsongkhapa in Gaden Monastery in Tibet when it was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Lama Zopa Rinpoche keeps this statue on his altar at Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche has recently given new advice suggesting that students follow a lam-rim outline and meditate on each subject for two weeks or one month until all subjects have been studied. Rinpoche advised, “The amount of time for meditation is up to the individual, but the general advice is to finish the lam-rim in one year,” Rinpoche said. “To meditate like this each year, wow, wow, wow! That would be great.”
To help students fulfill this request, FPMT Education Services has put together a list of lam-rim resources.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Tushita Meditation Centre, Dharamsala, India, June 2013. Photo by Ven. Sarah Thresher.
In Mandala October-December 2013, Lama Zopa Rinpoche responds to a long-time student who wrote to Rinpoche in thanks for his “blessings, guidance and protection” over many years. The anonymous student currently takes care of her mother who suffers physically after a series of strokes. As a method to deal with the challenges of caregiving, the student visualizes taking care of Rinpoche when taking care of her mother.
“I know I have not developed special qualities,” concludes the student. “Without your teachings, without your example and blessings, without your guidance and protection, it would have been unbearable to face all this.”
First of all, it is really great the meditation you are doing: serving your mother and thinking you are serving the guru. When I was in Tibet (not the last time, but the time before) our journey took us to Reting, Lama Dromtönpa’s monastery, which he built on the advice of Lama Atisha. I didn’t know, but our guide directed the tour through His Holiness the Karmapa’s monastery in Tshurpu. We stayed there one day and slept outside the monastery in tents for two nights. I went to visit nearly every temple in the monastery. The monks were doing puja and I personally made money offering to each one, handing them the money myself. As I did this, I started to think that each one was my guru, His Holiness Trijang Rinpoche or Lama Yeshe (maybe the first one). This is what I was thinking as I gave the money, so I collected the most extensive merits and accumulated the most powerful purification because I was thinking of each monk as the guru.
So first of all, this life’s parents are very powerful objects of merit. Even very small negative or positive actions done towards this life’s parents are extremely powerful. Therefore, as a result of offering service to your mother, you will have so much happiness even in this life, your wishes will succeed and you will have a very good life. And the result is experienced not only this life; each positive action of offering service that you create towards the parents will bring benefit for thousands of lifetimes. It brings a good rebirth and unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable happiness while you are in samsara. I’m talking about each small service; every one results in happiness for thousands of lifetimes. So can you imagine the result of twenty-four hours of service? Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Then, if the service is done with bodhichitta, each one is the cause of enlightenment. The merit of every small service, every virtue created is so powerful. …
From Mandala October-December 2013
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Cover from the new Mandala October-December 2013
Lama Zopa Rinpoche has recently been commenting on the need for FPMT students to actualize the lam-rim teachings and achieve realizations. You can read Rinpoche’s recent advice in the just-published Mandala October-December 2013:
Special group of retreatants
First of all, I want to say that the FPMT has been developing now for many years and over that time people have been studying and practicing the Dharma according to their ability. Generally, when I look at the FPMT organization, what I see is that the students have developed more compassion and good-heartedness. This is extremely worthwhile because compassion for all sentient beings is the very heart of Buddhism; it is the most important Dharma practice for the happiness of the individual students, for their families, for society, for the country, for the world and for the six realms’ sentient beings.
There has been a lot of study and the study is going well; there is Discovering Buddhism, the Basic Program and the Masters Program. Particularly in the Gelugpa tradition there is a lot of teaching and learning philosophy, and in the FPMT organization we have been doing that. Buddhist philosophy is now being studied in almost every center, especially where there is a resident geshe. We even have Western students who have completed the Masters Program and can teach philosophy where there is no geshe, or even where there is a geshe. There are more centers teaching the Masters Program and some centers have already taught the Basic Program several times. People have been learning about Buddhism, and especially the lam-rim, for quite some time now in the FPMT and there are some who are also trying to meditate and practice the lam-rim.
Now what is needed are people who will sacrifice their lives, as they did in India, Tibet and Nepal, not just to study the Dharma like at a college or university, but to actualize the teachings in a monastery or isolated place. In Tibet, the mountains were full of caves like ants’ nests, where people would go to practice without distraction. When I came from Solu Khumbu [in Nepal] to Tashi Lhunpo Monastery in Tsang [Tibet] and then on to Pagri [in Tibet] there were many caves along the road where meditators would practice with hardship and the realizations of guru devotion, renunciation, bodhichitta, right view and the two stages of tantra would all come. Wow, wow, wow. It’s unbelievable! That’s why the country of Tibet is so blessed and so precious because there are many, many caves where meditators, like Milarepa, for example, achieved different realizations, such as the rainbow body.
This is how Buddhism really comes alive – when it is not just words, not just scholars, but really living Buddhism. When study and realization come together, Buddhism will really last. Wow, then like an ocean in the heart and the mind, it will spread and be preserved. …
From Mandala October-December 2013
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Masters Program students (left to right): Ven. Tiziana Losa, Jacob Fisher, Yaniv Sagi, Marina Brucet, Hans Burghardt, Yumi Terada and Joan Dombón, Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, Pomaia, Italy, July 2013. Photo courtesy of ILTK.
The second cycle of the FPMT Masters Program at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa (ILTK), Pomaia, Italy, is coming to a close. Based on Lama Yeshe’s unique vision for comprehensive education and inspired by the traditional geshe studies at the Tibetan Gelug monastic universities, the Masters Program is the FPMT’s most advanced study program. Consisting of six years of intensive study followed by a one-year retreat, it provides serious students with the opportunity to explore deeply the major treatises of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism and to gain a strong grasp of the profound tradition of Lama Tsongkhapa. From among those individuals who successfully complete this program of study, it is hoped that some will show suitable interest and abilities and become qualified teachers of Buddhist theory and practice in FPMT centers. Integrating components of behavior, study, meditation and service, the program provides students with the conditions necessary to engage in in-depth study of three major Buddhist Mahayana treatises (Abhisamayalamkara, Madhyamakavatara and Abhidharmakosha) as well as tantric grounds and paths and the tantra of Guhyasamaja, providing students with a thorough grounding in both sutra and tantra. More….
Image courtesy of Dreamstime.
As Gelong Tenzin Namdak explains in his introduction to Chenrezig Gyalwa Gyatso Self-Initiation by Jampal Gyatso, “Self-initiation is a powerful practice in which you take the four empowerments on your own, thereby renewing your bodhisattva and tantric vows.”
This self-initiation ritual can be practiced by anyone who has already received the four empowerments of Chenrezig Gyalwa Gyatso from a qualified teacher, is keeping the commitments and has completed the approximation retreat of at least 100,000 mantras plus 10,000 wisdom shower mantras and has sealed the retreat with a fire puja.
Includes Self-Initiation and Concise Self-Initiation, along with
important altar set-up information.
Available in reader eBook format (non-reflowable PDF).