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Tsoknyi Rinpoche, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and Khadro-la enjoying a break during a day of fire and incenses pujas, Kathmandu, Nepal, August 2020. Photo by Ven. Lhundrup Topgye.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:
Lama Zopa Rinpoche starts this teaching discussing the concept of equanimity. We think of ourselves as the most important and that our happiness is most important. However, every single being is as important as we are, and we can realize this by equalizing and exchanging ourselves with others. There is no proof or single logical reason that even a person who harms you is less important than you. Further, by harming others you are creating the cause to be harmed by them. You are so fortunate to be able to open your mind to understanding karma.
If you check, you will see that all suffering comes from cherishing “I” and all happiness comes from cherishing others. Those who harm you give you the opportunity to practice the perfection of patience, through which you can achieve enlightenment. So that person gives you enlightenment! Because you harmed others in the past, they are harming you now, which causes them to be reborn in the lower realms. If you think of karma, instead of wanting to harm that person, unbelievable compassion for that person arises, and you only want to help them.
Renouncing the “I” and cherishing others is what makes you enlightened. Since all of your happiness, including Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, comes from sentient beings, how dare you harm them! If someone treats you badly, if your bodhichitta is very powerful, many eons of negative karma get purified.
When you fulfill the guru’s wishes and advice, it is the same as doing many preliminary practices. Even if the work is very hard with many problems and difficulties, and you are bearing many hardships, you should know this is something to enjoy the most, because it contains many hundreds of prostration, many thousands of Vajrasattva mantras, mandala offerings, and so forth within the work. It is most amazing. It becomes the happiest thing in your life.
If you experience suffering when you correctly follow the virtuous friend, it means that an inconceivable amount of negative karma is getting purified. If you are following the guru’s advice and get sick or experience problems, this is a very good thing because it is unbelievable purification—many many eons of suffering in the lower realms gets purified. How much purification happens depends on how well you practice. If you think you are fulfilling the guru’s wishes and advice, there are no problems, and you collect showers of good karma. Guru devotion is not some Tibetan lamas’ trip; it generates realizations of the path.
Referring to a text by Lama Tsongkhapa, Rinpoche emphasized that if the four dharmas (the four thoughts that turn the mind toward Dharma) are stabilized, the rest of the virtues will be instantly generated. The four dharmas are: 1. The perfect human rebirth, how it is highly meaningful; 2. The precious human rebirth is difficult to find again; 3. Impermanence-death; and 4. Karma. If you don’t have renunciation of this life, then renunciation of samsara, your practice won’t be a cause of liberation. It will be a cause of samsara.
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 “Fulfilling the Guru’s Wishes and Advice Is the Most Enjoyable Thing in Life”:
https://youtu.be/S8YhdmUiBzQ
- Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
- Advice to Correctly Follow the Virtuous Friend with Thought and Action: The Nine Attitudes of Guru Devotion
- 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 translation, 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.