Rinpoche and Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi, enjoying tea on the lake in Pokhara after blessing the sentient beings in the lake, Pokhara, Nepal, December 2021. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

We can do many things with our perfect human rebirth. Lama Zopa Rinpoche consistently reminds us to not waste this human rebirth but use it to develop compassion and help others. Here is an excerpt of Rinpoche’s teachings on this topic from “The Time to Practice is Now,” a detailed summary of the 2020 Thought Transformation Teachings given by Rinpoche. Then, following the excerpt, is a short video of Rinpoche teaching on this topic.

By reflecting on our own samsara and realizing that we have experienced oceans of suffering from beginningless rebirths, we develop strong renunciation wishing to be free from it. When we also think that others are suffering in the same way, we develop compassion for them, wishing them to be free from suffering. While we are just one, they are numberless—and they suffer just like us. We can’t imagine the different kinds of suffering that other beings experience. It is unbearable.

To generate compassion, we need to know the suffering of the six-realm sentient beings. For example, pretas, or hungry ghosts (a type of being), can’t find food or drink for tens of thousands of years. Due to their karma, even if they see water, their gaze dries the water up and it disappears. If they look at a green plant, it becomes bare and wilted. One type of preta has a mouth the size of the eye of a needle, but a stomach as big as a mountain. Even if they find food or drink, it cannot fill their stomachs. A second type of preta has flames coming from its mouth, and a third type has knots in its neck. These pretas all have unimaginable, unbearable suffering. One practice Rinpoche does often is making charity to these pretas by combining the practice with Dzambala offering, utilizing the offered water for the pretas.

As human beings, we cannot stand even small problems and difficulties. But these hardships are nothing compared to those experienced by animals. They cannot express themselves, so there is no one to help them. In addition, human beings, from presidents and billionaires down to beggars, do not really comprehend the feelings of animals. We kill thousands of animals every day for food. People not only eat them, but also make money from killing them and selling their meat and other body parts including skin and fur. People have the mistaken view that this is a good thing, that there is nothing wrong with it, that these beings are there for our pleasure. They never think about the suffering of the animals and that they also want happiness. They don’t realize that these beings, who have been their mother’s numberless times, are objects of compassion, not simply objects of pleasure.

We, therefore, need to develop compassion for animals and help them. There are many ways to benefit animals, who may suffer in the animal realm not just for this one lifetime, but for many eons. In his teachings, Rinpoche offers examples of how to cherish all sentient beings, including even the tiniest (and most irritating!) among us, such as mosquitoes. Some ideas of ways to benefit them include offering them blessed water or food, reciting prayers and mantras to them, playing sutras for them to hear, taking them around holy objects, and so forth. We can also build holy objects that animals can circumambulate to collect merit.

Wherever we go we can benefit sentient beings. For example, when we go to the beach, we can benefit all the animals in the ocean by dedicating our merits for them to never again be reborn in the lower realms and to be free from physical and mental sufferings, and for all of their wishes to succeed according to holy Dharma. Also, while at the beach, we can pray for human beings, wishing that anyone who even hears about the beach, sees the beach, or remembers the beach be free from all suffering and achieve all happiness, including enlightenment.

Watch the Essential Extract “How to Help Sentient Beings Say Goodbye to the Suffering of Samsara”:

In this video Essential Extract, Lama Zopa Rinpoche describes some of the ways in which he helps animals as well as people say goodbye to suffering. For example, in California, Rinpoche, together with sangha, goes to a pier over the ocean and dips a board, on which is carved the Namgyalma mantra, into the ocean. Before that, Rinpoche also recites mantras and blows on some water to bless it, and then pours the water in the ocean to purify the sentient beings living in it. Rinpoche also recites the long Chenrezig mantra and whenever he puts his feet in an ocean or lake, the water becomes blessed and anyone who is touched by it is purified. When Rinpoche goes to a beach, he makes prayers that anyone who comes to the beach, or even hears about or sees the beach, is never again reborn in the lower realms, that all their wishes succeed according to holy Dharma, and that they actualize bodhicitta and achieve enlightenment.

Read the transcript of this video extract from Rinpoche’s teaching:
https://fpmt.box.com/s/w2zmr2lgs6ag94xtccgcg4ua4nn6bsft

You can find more blogs with short video clips from Rinpoche’s teaching as well as the complete collection of these “Essential Extracts” videos on FPMT.org.

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.