Lama Zopa Rinpoche in Madrid, Spain, April 2019. Photo by Alexis Roitmann.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche sent this letter to all the staff at an FPMT center, thanking them for working at the center.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,

My thanks, first of all, that you have taken a human rebirth, from many lifetimes practice, praying, and dedicating to receive a human body and especially a perfect human body, and now being able to practice the Dharma and meet the Mahayana teachings. From that, any practice you do always begins with bodhichitta.

The main purpose of one’s life is to free the numberless sentient beings in each realm from the oceans of samsara suffering and to bring them to Buddhahood—the peerless happiness. So therefore one needs to achieve Buddhahood in order to be able to do the perfect works for the sentient beings, without the slightest mistake.

Any Mahayana practice that you do begins with bodhichitta, to benefit all the sentient beings in the six realms. That means any practice you do with this motivation is helping the numberless sentient beings in every realm, that means every single hell being, hungry ghost, animal, human, sura, and asura in the numberless universes, so all the numberless sentient beings everyone.

The center you are at is not only helping people by giving them the opportunity to come to the center, but also by coming to the center then they find out about all the meditation subjects and the path to enlightenment.

By meeting Buddhism and finding out about meditation and the path to enlightenment, this is what helps them to purify past negative karma, to stop rebirths in the lower realms, by practicing morality, charity, and so forth. This creates the cause for higher rebirths in future lives, not even just for one lifetime. By practicing morality, keeping one precept, practicing charity, then this helps for so many hundreds and thousands of lifetimes. So it’s amazing, amazing the results.

In the Arya Sanghata Sutra the Buddha says, “The benefits of making charity to sentient beings, even the size of a single strand of hair, for eighty eons the result will be unbelievable wealth.”

Therefore in everyday life, practice charity with a healthy mind. I am saying this in a Western way, for those who don’t believe in reincarnation and karma. So then I say, a healthy mind, positive mind. So to practice with a mind without attachment, this is a peaceful mind. A mind with attachment is a disturbed mind, a contaminated mind, contaminated with suffering. So practice charity with a mind without attachment. Whether it is big or small charity, it is always helping, especially if it is to those in need, giving anything. So whatever you can give, this is the most important thing and this is creating a healthy life. From charity comes wealth and success in this life and next lives.

From pure morality, this leads to good rebirth, and being able to meet Dharma and to practice Dharma. Not only that, the next thing is be to free from samsara, by practicing the three higher trainings—the higher training of morality, the higher training of concentration, and the higher training of wisdom.

So now you can see by people coming to the center they learn how to be free from the oceans of samsara suffering. Not just for a few hours or a few days, but forever. Can you imagine?

So no matter how hard it is, it is so worthwhile because you are creating the cause for them to be free from death, free from suffering, free from birth, old age, and sickness, and so forth, to be free from the suffering of depression and dissatisfaction. Even the dissatisfaction of billionaires and zillionaires is worse than the suffering in the hell realms. Then there are the three kinds of suffering. There is the suffering of pain. Then, the suffering of change—which refers to all samsaric pleasures (such as the pleasures of music, surfing, jumping out of an airplane with a parachute, sex, drugs, alcohol, and so forth). All the samsara pleasures are in reality in the nature of suffering, but they appear as pleasure to begin with. This is what is called the suffering of change. Then the third suffering, the all-pervasive compounded suffering, is being under the contaminated seed of delusion and karma. So it is pervaded by karma, the seed. There is no worse suffering that the pervasive compounded suffering.

So to be free from all of this forever, this is by learning Buddhism, meditation, the three higher trainings, the five paths to liberation, and so forth. It is from this that one can know how to be free from samsara forever. Not only that, they meet the Mahayana teachings, learn bodhichitta on the basis of generating compassion to all sentient beings, practice the six paramitas, the sutra five paths and ten bhumis, and then they are able to meet the Mahayana tantra. And by practicing Mahayana tantra, they are able to achieve enlightenment in one brief lifetime of degenerate time.

It is by practicing the eight Mahayana precepts, or eight pratimoksha precepts, five lay vows, or even less than five, like four, three, two, or one, even just for one day, this is what helps for five hundred lifetimes to have a human rebirth or deva rebirth and so forth.

By practicing charity it brings the success of wealth and so forth, all the enjoyments, for many hundreds of lifetimes, or even thousands of lifetimes. This can come from even just one time giving charity. This is the real cause of success in your life.

Practicing the good heart is the most important thing and the best cause of success in your life. For however many times you are born in samsara, until you achieve the ultimate wisdom directly perceiving emptiness that ceases delusion and karma, which are the causes of the oceans of suffering in samsara, practicing the good heart is the real cause of happiness. Then there is no non-virtue, only virtue. The good heart is the best way to create virtue.

“In the service of others” is written in Spanish on the backs of t-shirts created for the Lama Zopa Rinpoche event in Spain, April 2019. Photo by Alexis Roitmann.

Of course people would think that it is from education. But there are so many uneducated people in the world, in less developed countries, who are so happy, whose wishes get fulfilled, who have wealth and all their wishes succeed, but they have no education. Education can help, but it is not the main cause; it is the condition. Many times, if you have education but don’t have a good heart, then having education causes problems such as ego, pride, non-virtuous thought, the thought to harm others and to destroy the world, and so forth.

Therefore some people have high degrees and very good education, but still they cannot find jobs, or it takes a long time. Of course if the person’s mind is open then I would suggest reading the Arya Sanghata Sutra and Golden Light Sutra in order to collect unbelievable merits and the causes of success. Then also my general advice is every day to help insects, people, animals, and especially those who have problems, to help them in any way possible.

So the ultimate conclusion is to practice the good heart. This is the best Dharma. With the good heart everything happens, especially enlightenment—the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations—not only to achieve enlightenment, but to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsara sufferings and to bring them to enlightenment.

So this is what you are doing and what the center does. All of you who are helping the center and working at the center, you are helping every sentient being, every animal, every ant in the differing universes, every mosquito, all the different kinds of fish, every slug, every mouse, every maggot, and every tiny flea.

Thank you very much. Please enjoy life with the good heart. That is the best way to enjoy the life. With a good heart, this causes inner happiness that goes up to enlightenment.

Thank you very much, see you soon.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

Colophon: Scribed by Holly Ansett, Taos, New Mexico, US, June 2017. Lightly edited by Laura Miller, March 2019.

Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche teach live from Madrid, Spain, April 26-29:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/

Find recordings of recent Lama Zopa Rinpoche teachings:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/

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.