Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching in Madrid, Spain, April 2019. Photo by Alexis Roitmann.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered advice to a studious former monk who wrote to Rinpoche about receiving criticism and abuse from people. Here’s an excerpt from Rinpoche’s advice:

Every day, in the morning, when you begin the day, please remember emptiness. Everything is empty: I, action, and object. You can recite the Heart Sutra and the quotations below.

If you can, remember them in your daily life again and again. When you open the door, when the day begins, while seeing the reality of phenomena or the reality of life, recite and meditate on the meaning of these words.

These are Buddha’s words from the Sutra of the King of Concentration:

As in the clear sky, the moon rises,
the reflection appears in the ocean,
but there is no transfer of the moon into the water:
All phenomena should be known to be of that nature.

The magician transforms the forms
Of various phenomena, like a horse carriage and an elephant,
but there is nothing there as it appears:
All phenomena should be known to be like that.

Exactly as when following sexual pleasure in a dream,
after the person wakes up, they cannot see it,
like an immature person who is extremely attached to sexual pleasures:
All phenomena should be known like that.

Exactly as in the dream of a young girl
Of giving birth to a son who died,
so happy to have given birth, but unhappy that he died:
All phenomena should be known like that.

Exactly like the nighttime moon
that appears in the water, calm and clear,
but the moon on the water is empty, you cannot catch it:
All phenomena should be known like that.

Exactly as at noon in autumn,
people tormented with thirst
see a mirage as water:
All phenomena should be known like this.

A mirage has no water.
Sentient beings are dying of thirst and desire to drink
but are unable to drink that water, which does not exist:
All phenomena should be known like that.

Exactly like the water tree:
even if a person wishes to take the essence from it,
a person splits that tree, there is no essence at all, no nectar inside or outside:
All phenomena should be known like that.

Also, it is good if you can recite the verses in the Thirty-Seven Practices of the Bodhisattva on emptiness, by the bodhisattva Thogme Zangpo.

Various sufferings appear in hallucinations, like a son who dies in a dream:
by holding it to be true, one suffers.
Therefore, when you encounter disharmonious conditions (that is, conditions not according to your wish, unfavorable conditions)
Looking at them as an illusion is the practice of the son of the bodhisattvas.

You are a very philosophical person. I am sure I don’t need to explain this to you. I am sure your mind is always this way, but I will explain it anyway.

The way to meditate on the first stanza is this: The meaning is that ignorance leaves imprints that are impure on the mental continuum. Like the moon reflecting on the ocean, those imprints project hallucinated appearances, truly existent appearances. They project all the hallucinations that appear, appearing as truly existent, on the merely labeled phenomena—I, action, object, happiness, suffering, virtue, non-virtue—whatever exists.

Including the mind as well as its object—the perceiver/knower, or mind, and its object—these look or appear like they are there, but they are not there. A truly existent real knower or perceiver, the mind and object, look like they are there, but they are not there.

In reality, everything is empty. Therefore, in reality all that is appearing as real is appearances, but is totally non-existent, empty.

All that appears to be real, inherently existent, in our daily life, this inherently existent phenomenon or real phenomenon, is totally non-existent. The way phenomena appear should be understood as non-existent, totally non-existent.

Therefore, all phenomena—I, action, object—all the phenomena that exist, are empty. They are empty from their own side. They are empty from their own side because all these phenomena exist by being merely labeled.

For the rest of the stanzas, you can get the basic idea from this explanation. Then all day you can laugh about your own life, your own beliefs, own fears, and grasping. You can laugh even when you are alone in your room. You can laugh twenty-four hours a day about your own life. You can laugh in the kitchen making tea. You can laugh in the shop. You can laugh in your bedroom, when you’re asleep, everywhere. You can laugh when you feel depressed. You can laugh when you feel excited.

The second part is thought transformation, how to meditate on emptiness during the meditation break and to look at all phenomena during break times like a dream. That means looking at the object of the knower as empty—not true: empty. Examining the nature of unborn wisdom—that is wisdom meditating on the emptiness of that—free even of the remedy itself.

Even the remedy, even emptiness itself, has no inherent existence, it is free of that. Look at emptiness itself as empty of inherent existence. This could also be related to the self, the person, the meditator, to oneself, as also empty.

Place the mind in the state of the base, which is the essence of the path. In the break time, be the illusory person. …

This advice “How to Use Criticism and Unfavorable Situations on the Path” was originally published in “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book” on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/how-use-criticism-and-unfavorable-situations-path

Watch short video of Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/videos-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.