View from the top of Kopan Monastery, Nepal, May 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:

This video begins with Geshe Losang Sherab explaining how he came to be the Kopan Monastery chant leader (umze), and he also discusses a brief history of the annual Great Prayer Festival (Monlam) held at Kopan Monastery at the beginning of every lunar new year. This was part one of Geshe Sherab’s explanation, the rest of the story will be continued.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche starts this teaching introducing us to some variations in understanding Buddha’s enlightenment from the perspectives of the different scopes and then discusses how the Buddha showed the twelve deeds in different worlds according to the karma of sentient beings.

Rinpoche explains that merit is multiplied 300,000,000 times on Saka Dawa, the 15th day of the month of Saka Dawa, which is the day of Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, and passing into the “sorrowless state” (parinirvana). Because Saka Dawa combines these three special days, the possibility to create merit is unbelievable. Due to this, it is very important for one to use this opportunity to do “everything the best!”

The concept of permanence has been cheating us since beginningless rebirths. We have this concept that we are going to live long, but this concept of permanence cannot be trusted and is the reason why we are still suffering. Rinpoche suggests that instead of spending a lot of money on a funeral, which brings us “not one single benefit,” we could give that money to others through charity and create the cause to experience happiness from life to life.

Rinpoche’s Advice for Practice on Saka Dawa

1. Meditate on the lamrim.
2. Rejoice in the merits created by yourself, other sentient beings, and all the buddhas.
3. Generate bodhichitta and especially do tonglen practice (exchanging self with others).

Rinpoche explains that doing tonglen practice is “the best.” Each time you take on all of the suffering, problems, and delusions from other the sentient beings (which are numberless), you collect skies of merit.

Rinpoche then discusses how to properly do tonglen practice:

With compassion, take all the suffering and the causes of suffering, and give that to the self-cherishing thought, thereby destroying it. Absorb this into your heart in the form of dark smoke. You give this to your real enemy: the self-cherishing thought, which has made you suffer since beginningless rebirths in samsara, Rinpoche explains. Take all the suffering and the causes of suffering and use them like a bomb or a missile to destroy the self-cherishing thought.

With compassion, take suffering and the causes of suffering, and give that to your I-grasping ignorance, thereby destroying it. The self-cherishing thought that cherishes the “I” that you believe exists as real from its own side—that is destroyed.

Meditate on emptiness for a little while. Meditate on loving kindness and then do the giving practice by giving your body, enjoyments, and merits to numberless sentient beings. Through this, sentient beings get what they want, and they also get what they need.

4. Read Heart Sutra, Diamond Cutter Sutra, Sanghata Sutra, and Sutra of Golden Light.
5. Do Chenrezig Practice and recite OM MANI PADME HUM mantra.
6. Do Vajrasattva practice.
7. Do self-initiation or tsog.

Great Holy Days of the Buddhist Calendar

• The Fifteen Days of Miracles (Days 1-15 of Month 1; Day 15 is called Chotrul Duchen): Guru Shakyamuni Buddha shows miraculous powers in order to subdue six Tirthika, or non-Buddhist teachers, who lacked faith in him, and to inspire more faith in his followers.
• Saka Dawa (Day 15 of Month 4): Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, and parinirvana.
• Chokhor Duchen (Day 4 of Month 6): Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s first teaching.
• Lhabab Duchen (Day 22 of Month 9): 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.

We invite you to go deeper into the advice Rinpoche has offered here by watching Rinpoche’s video and reading the full transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching to receive the full instruction.

Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “Advice for Saka Dawa Duchen“:
https://youtu.be/xYWCFIwZgTk

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s “Advice for Saka Dawa Duchen”
• “Lama Zopa Rinpoche Describes the Multiplying Effects of Saka Dawa”
• Learn more about lamrim practice
• Find links to the sutras mentioned in this video and additional resources related to sutra recitation
• Find links to the mantras mentioned in this video and additional resources related to mantra recitation
• Chenrezig practice
• Vajrasattva practice on the FPMT Foundation Store
• Tsog practice on the FPMT Foundation Store
• Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings

Find more advice and video teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche from Kopan Monastery and also links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, and more:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/announcements/resources-for-coronavirus-pandemic/advice-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche-for-coronavirus/

Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.