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

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

Rinpoche begins this teaching reminding us that the “self-cherishing thought” is what creates all of our suffering, including, since beginningless time, the oceans of animal suffering, the oceans of preta being suffering, the oceans of sura being suffering, the oceans of asura being suffering, and all the different problems and suffering of this life, including obstacles, physical and mental sufferings, and sicknesses. All of this is created by the self-cherishing thought. It not only causes your suffering but has also caused so much suffering for others.

Because of the self-cherishing thought, you have not had any realizations at all; the mind remains like an empty pot. The most frightening mind is the mind that holds the self-cherishing I as real. This is the real enemy. The I that you cherish most is not there at all, not even the slightest atom. Giving up the I and cherishing others is the solution to your suffering.

With bodhichitta—the ultimate good heart cherishing others—you can say goodbye to all the things that destroy your life. You can also say goodbye to doctors and psychologists because you have total peace and happiness of body and mind.

Everything that appears to you is created by your ignorance. Rinpoche shares and discusses this quote from the Fifth Dalai Lama:

Due to the hallucinated appearance of the thick darkness of ignorance,
The way your body and mind appear to you is like a variegated, coiled rope.
With the fear of a poisonous snake due to thinking “I,”
You experience the fear of the three [types of] suffering.

Rinpoche then has a humorous discussion about the difference between snakes, snacks, and snake snacks!

Following on the theme of discussing snakes, Rinpoche then explains the karmic results of killing snakes:

1. The complete negative karma of killing a snake has the ripened-aspect result of rebirth in hell, in the lower realms.
2. The possessed result is that even when good karma ripens and you are reborn as a human being, you still suffer and have many problems in life, including dangers of death, because of killing a snake. You live in places where there are a lot of contagious diseases, obstacles to your health, and so forth. 
3. There is experiencing the result similar to the cause. This is when others kill you as the result of the past karma of killing the snake.
4. There is creating the result similar to the cause. As a result of the past negative karma of killing a snake, even if it was just once, you want to kill again. You created a habit for killing. Then when you kill again, the negative karma created has the four suffering results again. So it goes on and on, on and on. It makes endless suffering of samsara.

If you don’t meet the Dharma, you won’t change your karma, and it goes on forever. By killing that one snake, your samsaric suffering becomes endless. This is why practicing morality, even keeping just the precept not to kill, is so important. If you are smart, you must practice Dharma.

Going back to the quote by the Fifth Dalai Lama, Rinpoche explains the scenario where it is dusk and there is a piece of rope: the way it is curled and due to the lack of light, it appears as a snake. First you label it “snake” with your mind. Then the appearance of a snake comes and you believe this and think, “Oh, there’s a snake!” Then you are afraid and think it will bite you. So much fear. But your mind totally created it. There is nothing there. There is not even one atom of a snake. Not an atom of snake is there. It was produced by your mind.

We need to practice seeing what appears to us as real as actually being created by our ignorance. When something appears—be it a snake or a self-cherishing I—it appears to you as not merely labeled by the mind, even though just a second ago it was merely labeled by your mind. You don’t realize that, you forget that, so it appears real. Due to the negative imprints collected on the mind, on the continuity of consciousness, the merely labeled I is decorated on that, so it appears real. However, real is made by your mind, made by ignorance. The whole world that appears real is created by ignorance. It is good to remember this as a mindfulness practice on ignorance.

The three types of suffering arise from the concept of holding the I to be true. Meditating on emptiness in your daily life leaves imprints that allow you to realize emptiness more quickly. If you realize emptiness, then you can enlighten others and free them from samsara. Then, with the support of bodhichitta, developing the wisdom of emptiness with bodhichitta, and developing bodhichitta with the support of wisdom, you achieve enlightenment for sentient beings!

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 “Everything That Appears to You Is Created by Your Ignorance”:
https://youtu.be/edwCsEeeDTU

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• Find Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, and Russian
• Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings

Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 and find links to videos in transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, 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.