Rinpoche giving a teaching on chod practice, having also done a tea offering practice on the hill with senior Kopan monks, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, October 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 we will continue to suffer if we never make preparation for tomorrow’s happiness. Worldly people don’t see that—they only think of happiness now, only think of this life and don’t make preparation for the happiness of tomorrow, next month, next year, and certainly not for the next life. So the suffering continues.

When karma ripens, you must experience what you have created, no matter how much you don’t like it. This is why we have to be careful not to create negative causes and conditions. In order to avoid this, we have to practice Dharma. Not worldly Dharma, holy Dharma. Practicing Dharma doesn’t mean sitting on the meditation cushion or doing prayers all day long. It means renouncing this life. Even to be poor externally isn’t the main objective. It is to renounce attachment, the three poisonous minds, and the self-cherishing thought that is the root of samsara. This is renouncing where all the problems come from—all the attachment to this life, all the emotions. That is the first Dharma. If you don’t know how to practice Dharma, you won’t give up attachment to this life.

Even to achieve liberation from samsara forever is not the real meaning of human life. The real meaning of a human life is to abstain from harming sentient beings and only benefit them—to cause happiness and free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings. To do this, you have to know what Dharma is. 

Every day you have to remember to stop harming sentient beings. If they harm, don’t harm back. You only benefit and bring every sentient being to peerless happiness, the total cessation of gross and subtle obscurations, and completion of all realizations. To do this you need to achieve the state of omniscience. Therefore, you listen to the teachings.

Practicing lojong means you transform your suffering mind into a happy mind all the time.

You collect great merit by listening to teachings on emptiness, teaching emptiness to others, and meditating on emptiness. You also collect great merit by writing out and reading the Prajnaparamita. Rinpoche and others are writing out the Prajnaparamita in pure gold. Monks in the monasteries memorize the Prajnaparamita so they can easily bring Dharma to the world. It is very skillful to utilize the opportunity of holy merit-multiplying days by writing out and printing sutras.

Kyabje Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche said the best practice is studying Prajnaparamita, Rinpoche explains. Then there are the middle preliminary practices of reading Gyetongpa one hundred times and the smaller nine preliminary practices of refuge, prostrations, Vajrasattva, mandala offerings, and so forth. Many people might think that studying and doing preliminary practice are separate—that studying is not really purifying the mind and collecting merits. So then you think the mandala offerings you do are separate. It is not like that. You have to recognize that by studying Prajnaparamita you are doing the best preliminary practice. You have to know that. Those who are studying the FPMT Education Basic Program and Masters Program have to know this.

Even if you doubt that things exist from their own side and think things might be empty—this already shakes your samsara. To have even a little faith in the teachings on emptiness is so fortunate. And if you have faith in the Diamond Cutter Sutra—wow! You collect more merit than making charity of your own body! By writing these texts, reading them, memorizing them, keeping them, and then of course actualizing the meaning and revealing to others—wow! Inconceivable merits. The place where you read these sutras becomes holy. It becomes like a stupa! Can you imagine those who memorize many texts on the teachings of emptiness? They can recite in the car, on top of Mount Everest, anywhere they are! Even memorizing one verse and teaching others—this is easy to do and creates so much merit. Even wishing to receive teachings on emptiness purifies negative karma. Just the wish to realize that nothing exists from its own side—this alone … inconceivable benefit. Just listening to the meaning of dependent-arising starts to liberate you from oceans of samsaric suffering. There is no question if you are writing, making offerings or prostrations to the text, or memorizing—unbelievable merits you collect. You purify the heavy negative karma and downfalls.

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 “Having Even a Little Faith in Emptiness Is So Fortunate”:
https://youtu.be/qBFfWwB6WoE

• 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.