receive our newsletters
join Friends of FPMT
Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at the Kopan November Course, Nepal, December, 2022. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Everything comes from the mind, Rinpoche reminds us in this second teaching from the fifty-third lamrim meditation course at Kopan Monastery, given on December 8, 2022. Samsara, nirvana, suffering, enlightenment, all appearances we have, anything we hold as good or bad – all of this comes from the mind. Rinpoche uses the letter Z as an example. This letter appears and we hold on to that appearance. In fact, everything is like this. Nothing exists from its own side, not even an atom. Everything comes from the mind, is merely imputed by the mind, and later due to the false hallucination, appears as totally existing.
Do everything for sentient beings, Rinpoche advises, with a bodhicitta motivation. We have to cultivate the thought to naturally wish to lead every sentient being we meet to enlightenment, like how a mother feels for her child who fell in a fire. Even one second of her child being in a fire is unbearable to her. This is how it should feel toward sentient beings is samsara.
Rinpoche shared the following quotation from Lama Tsongkhapa’s Three Principal Aspects of the Path to Enlightenment:
Without the wisdom realizing ultimate reality,
Even though you have generated renunciation and the mind of enlightenment,
You cannot cut the root cause of circling.
Therefore, attempt the method to realize dependent arising.
To eliminate ignorance, we have to realize the Prasangika school’s view of emptiness. The four schools happened in Buddha’s time in India, but the Prasangika view – this is the one we have to realize.
Rinpoche offers the oral transmission of the Heart Sutra starting at 2:14:33 in the video.
We invite you to go deeper into the topics presented here, plus many others, by watching Rinpoche’s video below and reading the full transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching. An unedited video recording of the live transcription alongside Rinpoche’s teaching is also available.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “How the Letter Z Comes Into Existence”:
https://youtu.be/RVRJolNbM-U
This summary of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching is by Carina Rumrill, with editorial input and additions by Justin Jenkins. This summary is meant to highlight key topics presented by Rinpoche in the recorded video and is not intended to serve as a full representation of Rinpoche’s teaching, which is best received through watching the video.
These teachings are being livestreamed with transcription so that everyone can receive them, until the Kopan retreat ends on December 26, 2022. Subscribe to the FPMT YouTube channel to get notified when new videos are uploaded or a livestream starts. Livestreams are also announced on Telegram as well as Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Facebook page, and the FPMT and Kopan Monastery Facebook pages. Livestreams can also be watched without a transcript for those who prefer that format.
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.