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Lama Zopa Rinpoche circumambulating 1,000 buddhas at night, Kopan Monastery, Nepal April, 2020. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings from Kopan Monastery in Nepal during the coronavirus pandemic.
Geshe Yeshe Kunga begins this video explaining that Kopan Monastery is engaged in charitable work in response to the COVID-19 crisis and invites us to rejoice in the generosity of all involved with this. Even if we don’t engage in a charitable act directly, rejoicing is an easy and beneficial way to create merit and participate in the generosity.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche starts this teaching explaining that as long as one is in samsara, there is no way to be well. We are always experiencing suffering, whereas Dharma happiness is a blissful state of peace and the total cessation of obscurations and the completion of realizations.
Meeting Dharma in this life is so precious and allows one to have the three great meanings in life:
When we are lazy with our precious human life, and not practicing Dharma, it is very easy to engage in attachment, anger, and ignorance—the delusions—and create so much negative karma. You become like “firewood in hell,” Rinpoche explains. However, if we utilize our misery and suffering—including this virus or whatever problems arise—in the path to enlightenment with bodhichitta, we make life useful to every sentient being.
As a motivation for listening to the teachings, Rinpoche explains, one should think: I am going to see the deep suffering of samsara of myself and others. Then realizing the truth, emptiness, I can establish the motivation that my life is to benefit others. Therefore, I must liberate numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to peerless happiness, which is the total cessation of obscurations and completion of realizations, by myself alone. I must achieve enlightenment. Therefore, I’m going to listen to the teachings.
If you practice holy Dharma, even in this life, you will be happier. When you don’t practice Dharma, whatever you do doesn’t bring satisfaction. Since beginningless rebirths, we have been trying to get samsaric enjoyment but we are still suffering. If you want happiness, you must completely abandon desire. As long as you follow desire, you will never get satisfaction, only suffering. The most important thing to know is this: Less desire means more happiness in life. Otherwise, your Dharma practice doesn’t become real Dharma. You cheat yourself if you don’t renounce the world.
Rinpoche also explains the meaning of the saying: “no anger, no enemy.” If you avoid anger, there is no enemy in the world. So in that way, it is up to you whether or not you have enemies. If you have loving-kindness, great compassion, and bodhichitta for every being, then everyone becomes precious and kind, and there is no separation between yourself and others—no enemy.
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 “Happiness Comes from Abandoning Desire”:
https://youtu.be/92rqMThrKqg
- Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching “Happiness Comes from Abandoning Desire”
- Ten Innermost Jewels of the Kadampas by Zhabkar Tshogdrug Rangdröl
- Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings
Find more advice and video teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche from Kopan Monastery during the COVID-19 crisis and also links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, 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.