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Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Kopan Monastery, April 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings from Kopan Monastery in Nepal during the coronavirus pandemic.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this video discussing a verse from Lama Chopa by Panchen Lozang Chokyi Gyaltsen (LC 89):
NYAM THAG DRO WA DI KÜN DAG GI MA
Thinking how all these pitiful transmigratory beings have been my mothers
YANG YANG DRIN GYI KYANG PÄI TSHÜL SAM NÄ
And have protected me with kindness again and again,
DUG PÄI BU LA TSE WÄI MA ZHIN DU
Please bless me to feel compassion for them,
CHÖ MIN NYING JE KYE WAR JIN GYI LOB
Like a loving mother for her cherished child.
Rinpoche explains the meaning of “pitiful” (or nyam thag in Tibetan) transmigratory beings:
“When we say nyam thag, [it means that they are] pitiful due to ignorance, the root [of samsara], holding the I [as existing from its own side] while it is totally empty of existing from its own side, [of existing] by itself, or [of being] truly existent, [of being] the real one, which has been appearing to us from beginningless rebirths. Not only from this morning or from birth, [but] from past lives, from beginningless rebirths, we have been believing a hundred percent in that. It did not appear the I which exists, which exists in mere name, and believing in that; not that, not that—totally opposite. Then, wow, wow, wow, that’s a big shock, totally hallucinated. The normal worldly people what they believe is not there. It is totally opposite to that. The way that it appeared is totally opposite to that, it is like that—the greatest shock. By that they are also ‘pitiful.’”
Rinpoche also discusses the sufferings of the different realms and the importance of precious human rebirth, and how thinking about the above Lama Chopa verse helps us develop a strong bodhichitta motivation.
Then Rinpoche offers extensive advice on how to help people who are dying. (During this section of the teaching, which begins at 59:45, there is a section that has only audio of Rinpoche’s teaching. The video of the teaching returns after about five minutes.)
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s video “Introducing the Merely Labeled I and Self Cherishing / Advice to Help the Dying”:
https://youtu.be/v5bvModCnvU
- Read the transcript of “Introducing the Merely Labeled I and Self Cherishing / Advice to Help the Dying.”
- Practices Rinpoche refers to in his advice on helping those who are dying include The Array of Sukhavati Pure Land: A Concise Mahayana Sutra and the Chenrezig mantra and request.
- Find links to more mantras and resources to support death and dying.
Find more video teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche from Kopan Monastery during the COVID-19 crisis.
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.