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Lama Zopa Rinpoche walking the grounds 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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins his teaching discussing how many people have died around the world from the coronavirus. This is because life is in the nature of impermanence, and we are born under the control of delusion and karma. However, those who have the karma to receive correct teachings and listen, reflect, meditate, and actualize the four noble truths correctly can become free from suffering and the cause of suffering. Through actualizing wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, they can cease the seed of delusion and karma.
Those of us born under the control of delusion and karma didn’t get to develop the mind and actualize Buddha’s teachings, and our lives have been under the control of laziness and a wrong concept of permanence, Rinpoche says. Even if we accept that we are going to die, when we wake up in the morning we think, I will live for a long time. Because of this hallucination of life, this wrong concept of permanence, Dharma is left out of life. Controlling and subduing the mind is left out, even if one knows the words from sutra and tantra, philosophy, lamrim, etc., we don’t practice and experience it. This is like having medicine but not taking it.
However many years we have left of life, half of those years are finished while sleeping. Rinpoche stresses that we can use this time for practicing Dharma, even though it is difficult. With a Dharma motivation, particularly with bodhichitta, even sleeping becomes the cause for enlightenment.
A person who generates bodhichitta, or at least the motivation of bodhichitta, is most lucky. Even if you meditate on bochichitta, it covers all sentient beings. There is no nationality, no race, nothing like that. Friends, enemies, and strangers are included.
Given the current situation in the world with the virus and all of the suffering, there is no choice but to develop compassion. Then, when considering karma, that this is due to ignorance not knowing Dharma, it makes you feel deeper compassion for others. This inspires you to abandon negative karma—the cause of suffering—and to practice virtue—the cause of happiness.
The doctors and nurses who dedicate their lives to others, even though there is danger that they could get the contagious disease, from their hearts they want to serve and take care. Even if they get the disease and die, they will never be reborn in the lower realms. This is the best thing for those who sincerely want to help—they are saved from the lower realms and will go to a pure land or have the opportunity to have a higher rebirth such as a deva or human. We all must die, so to die with compassion for others, this is a very good death. Rinpoche reminds that His Holiness says that dying with bodhichitta is the best death.
One tries to have a long healthy life—watching the food we eat, going for walks, taking time off from working, etc. So, you cherish your life, but the real “I” you cherish is not there. However, Rinpoche says, any charity you offer to others that is bigger than a hair—any charity you give to others—you are offering your life, and from this you get happiness.
Do whatever you can to help animals and people: even a tiny insect like an ant, or a tiny being like a fishing worm; even a small gesture such as carrying heavy luggage for someone or offering your seat on the train or bus. From such a small virtue, the result is happiness.
In conclusion, on the basis of not causing harm, you serve others. The best thing is bodhichitta practice.
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 teaching “Coronavirus Leaves Us No Choice But to Develop Compassion and 80,000 Eons of Benefit from Making Charity”:
https://youtu.be/u6YSt0xytYg
- Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching “Coronavirus Leaves Us No Choice But to Develop Compassion and 80,000 Eons of Benefit for Making Charity.”
- Rinpoche quotes verses from Khunu Lama Rinpoche’s Verses in Praise of Bodhichitta (published in English as Vast as the Heavens, Deep as the Sea)
- Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings
- For more advice on practicing bodhichitta in everyday life, read Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Cultivating Mindfulness of Bodhichitta in Daily Activities.
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.