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Lama Zopa Rinpoche in the garden at Kopan Monastery offering advice to the main staff monks, Nepal, August 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:
Rinpoche begins this teaching explaining that from beginningless rebirths, we have eaten and been eaten by every type of sentient being. Eating animals is a habit from past lives and creates the result similar to the cause, and people who eat animals are behaving like snakes, tigers, and insects.
Rinpoche explains the karma of this more in depth. Four things must be present for the action of killing an animal to be complete:
- It’s a sentient being;
- You have the thought and motivation to kill;
- You do the action; and
- That being is killed while you are still alive.
Then, there are four results of a completed action:
- The ripened-aspect result;
- The possessed result;
- Experiencing the result similar to the cause; and
- Creating the result similar to the cause.
Rinpoche gives commentary on each of these results.
Fortunately, there are many things we can do that make it easy to purify negative karma and achieve enlightenment including reciting mantras, engaging in nyung na retreats, taking the eight Mahayana precepts, prostrations to the thirty-five buddhas, Chenrezig practice, etc. If you don’t realize how precious these practices are, you will think it is better to go to the beach and swim in the water like a fish. You need to learn the inner science of Dharma to purify your obscurations and develop more wisdom. This is why Dharma centers are so important, because they teach people what is to be practiced and what is to be abandoned.
It is so important to live your life with a good heart, not harming sentient beings and only benefiting them. First you can realize that everyone’s happiness is as important as your own; and next you can realize that their happiness is more important than your own.
Rinpoche then continues offering advice about prostrations. When you enter a place with holy objects, put your hand in prostration mudra and think: “My guru manifested in all these holy objects to free me from the lower realms, to free me from samsara and lower nirvana, and bring me to enlightenment.”
Lama Tsongkhapa did hundreds of thousands of prostrations to the thirty-five buddhas because even doing this practice well one time purifies the five heavy negative karmas. It contains the remedy of the four opponent powers. Rinpoche explains that when you do a full prostration, every atom that your body covers, including what is covered by your hair, creates the cause to be reborn as a wheel-turning king a thousand times according to the number of atoms that your body covers. Of course, the purpose of doing prostrations is not to be born as a wheel-turning king but to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings.
Rinpoche then offers the oral transmission of The Flowing Water of the Ganga: A Thorough Praise of the Thirty-Five Sugatas (at 1:11:58 in the video).
We invite you to go deeper into the topics presented here, plus many others, by watching Rinpoche’s video and reading the full transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “Lama Zopa Rinpoche Offers Oral Transmission of ‘The Flowing Water of the Ganga'”:
https://youtu.be/lHkUKEfE8DI
- Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
- The Flowing Water of the Ganga: A Thorough Praise of the Thirty-Five Sugatas by Ngulchu Dharmabhadra
- Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings
Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 and find links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/announcements/resources-for-coronavirus-pandemic/advice-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche-for-coronavirus/
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.