Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, April 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings from Kopan Monastery in Nepal during the coronavirus pandemic.

This video begins with Losang Namgyal Rinpoche sharing some thoughts about this difficult time due to the coronavirus. He suggests we not only need to stay safe and healthy, but should remember that we have this precious human rebirth. We must also remember impermanence and karma, and this will help us to overcome. He reminds us of the incredible service being offered by health care professionals around the world who deserve our great respect and good heart. And for those who are sick from this virus, we must have great compassion.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins his teaching discussing how many people have died from the coronavirus in the United States. He then explains that people all over the world will die—from sickness, famine, in war, due to killing, etc. In fact, the entire world will end sooner or later and anything that grows or was built, will one day end. This is the nature of impermanence.

Rinpoche says that this virus should make us think more about karma. The virus, and the entire world coming into existence, this all came from the mind. Because everything comes from the mind, how to stop suffering also comes from the mind. Rinpoche explains that there is individual suffering, but there are also world problems, called collective karma. In Buddhism, you can stop the suffering and create happiness. One can do this by understanding, learning, and hearing from a perfect teacher. Then by reflecting and meditating, one can actualize the path. Your mind becomes the path to overcome the oceans of suffering in samsara, including the virus, which is only one thing, one suffering.

In the West we are always distracting ourselves from the suffering of death. But when it comes, we have to experience it. If you haven’t met Dharma, you don’t want to think about it, and when you do, your thoughts are only of fear. There’s no method or preparation, just fear. So we ignore it.

Even though we wish to never be separated from that which brings us comfort—including our family, clothing, money, and possessions—at the time of death we will definitely be separated from everything we enjoy. These things cheat us, and we have to give them up at the time of death. 

What this virus is telling us is that we must practice Dharma. The virus came from the mind. But the mind also creates happiness, Rinpoche reminds us, not just suffering. A positive mind creates happiness. To practice Dharma means to cultivate a happy mind. Buddha’s teachings persuade us to overcome suffering. Not only this virus, but all suffering—including the suffering of death, suffering of rebirth, suffering of old age, suffering of sickness, and the suffering of pain. Buddha’s teachings also liberate us from the suffering of change of samsaric pleasures, which become the suffering of pain in the end. Since beginningless rebirths up until now we haven’t had even a one-second break from suffering. From birth the suffering of pain, and then the suffering of change, arises.

All the problems of the world are giving us instruction to practice Dharma, to meditate. By meditation, Rinpoche means making the mind more familiar with virtue, the cause of happiness—making the mind become the path to enlightenment.

In conclusion, Rinpoche gives some advice on what to do if we lose our brave heart, feel weak, lose enthusiasm about working for others, become lazy, or get depressed: Remember bodhichitta. This will transform one’s life.

Rinpoche then leads a powerful dedication to actualize bodhichitta, with prayers for the sick and those who have died, for Lama Tsongkhapa to be our direct guru in all future lives, and to cultivate the bodhisattva attitude of using our very life to benefit others, to regard all sentient beings as most precious.

We invite you to go deeper into the topics presented here, plus many others, by watching Rinpoche’s video and reading the full transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.

Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s video teaching “All the Problems in the World, Including the Coronavirus, Are Telling Us to Practice Dharma”:
https://youtu.be/OwX9ew7wLb4

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching “All the Problems in the World, Including the Coronavirus, Are Telling Us to Practice Dharma.” 
• Rinpoche quotes verses from Khunu Lama Rinpoche’s Verses in Praise of Bodhichitta, published in English as Vast as the Heavens, Deep at the Sea.
• Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings

Find more video teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche from Kopan Monastery during the COVID-19 crisis:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/lama-zopa-rinpoche-teachings-in-kopan-2020-during-covid-19-crisis/

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.