receive our newsletters
join Friends of FPMT
Lama Zopa Rinpoche in the Peace Park at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, Australia, May 2018. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
During the 2018 retreat in Australia, Lama Zopa Rinpoche explained the various results of positive actions, captured in this excerpt and video clip:
What Guru Shakyamuni Buddha sees, all the rest of the buddhas see similarly. They don’t find mistakes. No buddha finds mistakes in the way Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s omniscient mind sees reincarnation and karma, all the past, present, and future things—karma and its result. From virtuous action, karma, the result of happiness arises; from nonvirtuous action the result of suffering arises.
As I explained before, by practicing morality [in the past]—abstaining from killing—then in this life you have received the body of a happy transmigratory being. You have received, this time, a human body. That is the ultimate reason. The real proof, reason, is that.
Then in a past life you made charity. You practiced Dharma and made charity, not being miserly, making charity to other sentient beings of materials. Your merit—you made charity to others, so in this life you received wealth.
In a past life you practiced patience, so in this lifetime you have a beautiful body. And if you want to receive or to be born a human being with a beautiful body then you must practice patience in this life. Not get angry and practice patience, you have to know that.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “How to Achieve a Beautiful Human Body”:
https://youtu.be/bxDHB7qLP2o
Like Michael Jackson, he went so many times to make-up shops, to fix his nose, to fix this, to fix that. So many times he went to make-up shops. Not make-up, what do you call it? Operation. So many times Michael Jackson went. He died. I don’t know where he is. Maybe he is still dancing in a different body, maybe in an animal body he is dancing. I can’t say. Or maybe as a deva with a goddess he is dancing. I’m not sure.
So many people while they are young, they change many times. Then as they get older, their skin hanging, then they do an operation. So many times. You don’t need that if you practice patience instead of getting angry. If instead of getting angry you practice patience.
Even if one time you practice patience with somebody who makes you angry, for five hundred lifetimes you will have a beautiful body. It is like that if you practice patience one time with somebody, with insects, ants, with a mouse, with your parents, with your children, with your husband or wife. You practice patience then [you receive] a beautiful body for five hundred lifetimes.
If you practice patience one time, then for thousands, millions, bah, bah, bah.… You don’t need to go to make-up shops. You don’t need to build so many debts, debts, money, money, debts. If you don’t get enough money from your job, you get debts. You borrow money so many times, then you fail. You can go bankrupt. Then you hide. You go to Mount Everest. You go behind Mount Everest, in Tibet—I’m joking—or you go to Mount Kailash to hide.
Colophon: Excerpted from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, Bendigo, Victoria, Australia, April 1, 2018. Simultaneously transcribed by Ven. Joan Nicell. Lightly edited by Laura Miller, October 2018.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche teach LIVE from Spain, Germany, and Switzerland, October 19-November 18! For links to live video streams:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/
Find complete videos of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent teachings:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/
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.