Sunset on Kopan Hill while Lama Zopa Rinpoche is offering puja, May 2021. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Recently Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered some advice for those experiencing the intense heatwave in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. In the midst of record-high temperatures, Rinpoche advised on how to look at our present difficulties as an opportunity to practice by utilizing our suffering as a pathway to the greatest happiness by cultivating bodhicitta, and especially, by taking all the suffering of every sentient being upon ourselves so that they may receive enlightenment. Additionally, Rinpoche recommends making strong, heartfelt prayers to Chenrezig for the blessing of rain. We hope that you will find this advice from Rinpoche useful:

First, think about karma, cause and effect. In Tibetan, ledre. Secondly, think about how Lama Atisha had 157 gurus and two root gurus. One was Lama Serlingpa, from whom he received bodhichitta teachings in Indonesia for twelve years, like however much nectar one pot has being poured completely into another pot. Lama Atisha had to travel twelve months by boat in dangerous conditions to Indonesia to receive these teachings.

The other root guru is Lama Dharmarakshita, who gave the teaching of the Wheel of Sharp Weapons. One stanza from that says that when you have unbearable pain or disease, it’s due to you giving harm to others—the wheel of sharp weapons (bad karma) turned on yourself.

So now, you take all the pain, or the disease, onto yourself. This is what makes your pain or disease most worthwhile, causing all the sentient beings to achieve full enlightenment. So this means you experience every sentient being’s suffering and they become free from the entire suffering of samsara and achieve full enlightenment.

Actually it is sooooo precious. It harms your worst enemy—the self-cherishing thought that has caused you to suffer from beginningless rebirths in samsara, including causing samsara without end. If you don’t practice holy Dharma, particularly bodhichitta now, then you will have to continue suffering

That selfish mind has caused you to harm every sentient being. They suffer in the past and present and also future. You can’t imagine! This time and opportunity is soooo precious to destroy the enemy of bodhichitta. Not only mine, but every sentient being’s. As for others—I don’t know about people—but animals might suffer and die; even in the caves they have no air-conditioning or fans.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching in front of 1,000 Arm Chenrezig, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, August 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Make heartfelt prayers to Chenrezig. In front of the statue, recite the Chenrezig mantra, some malas.

Make very strong prayers. You should know that Chenrezig is there, he sees and understands everything. Then request what is the most important need for sentient beings, which is black clouds and so much rain for a long time. Then that causes landslides and water floods—I’m joking! Visualize strong rain in the whole area where there is heat.

From the second buddha, Nagarjuna, who mentioned in A Letter to a Friend [as a comparison to the suffering in hell], “Here, having put 360 short spears heavily into the body,” there’s no need to question about that. For us, even a tiny thorn the size of a hair, if it goes in the flesh it’s unbearable without taking it out. So imagine the example of the 360 short spears—most unbelievable, unbelievable suffering.

Therefore, there’s no comparison [including having 360 short spears in the flesh] to the unbearable, unbearable, extremely unbearable suffering of even the slightest hell. And then there’s having to experience it for one hundred eons or ten million eons.

So until the negative karma finishes, one never separates from suffering. This is something to think about when we think about lower realm sufferings every day. This is the most unbearable, and it’s the very smallest hell suffering.

As I often say, the heaviest suffering of human beings is actually great peace and pleasure when compared to the hell sufferings. So you can understand from this quotation. Whether you believe that hell exists or not is just the limitation of merit, of intelligence. Those who have a lot merit, they can remember past and future lives. They have merit, like those bodhisattvas who achieve the bhumis. The bodhisattvas who achieve the first bhumi can see one hundred past and future lives. And on the second bhumi they can see one thousand past and future lives. Then more and more … it goes on and on. The higher and higher they go, the fewer and fewer obscurations.

It’s like the more you clean it, the more you see the beauty—the color and design comes out. The more you clean the dirt it becomes clearer, so the quality of the mind comes out. That’s a very good outside example.

For example, a cup is dirty and smelly with kaka, but because the cup is not kaka you can clean it with soap and water. It’s the same with cloth that is very black and dirty, you can wash it with soap and different things, and then it becomes fresh like a new one, especially if you iron it. So that’s a very good outside example. Because the cloth isn’t oneness with the dirt, it’s just temporarily obscured. The mind is also not oneness with the obscurations, not oneness with attachment, anger, and ignorance—ignorance holding I and phenomena as truly existent. While it exists in mere name, not even an atom is existing from its own side.

So it’s an example, and through meditation, if you really meditate, if you get experiences, you see more and more clearly past and future lives, karma, with higher and higher realizations. As the mind gets less and less obscured and purified, then you can see things deeper and deeper, what ordinary beings cannot see. It doesn’t mean just because you can’t see it now [it doesn’t exist]. When the mind has fewer obscurations through purification, you can see for yourself, you can prove to yourself.

Now here as I mentioned, this shows very clearly the example of hell sufferings. It’s not hell but it’s giving an example. It’s a human being suffering, but it’s like hell, it gives you an idea—then, it becomes unbelievably hot, beyond human suffering. The heat is there, it’s the same as in Bodhgaya where it’s hot every single year. It’s not been in America, but now it happens. In India, in Bodhgaya, it happens every year. It’s just that we don’t know about India. So you see, this didn’t come from the outside, it came from the mind.

Nearby, there’s a part of America—the name I don’t know—it’s in the corner of America, there is so much water, so much flooding, so much of that has happened. Then in Washington it’s so hot. Some areas are very hot while close by there is flooding. It looks like it comes from outside, but it comes from the inside—the mind—the result of past negative karma.

The foundation of Buddhism is that happiness and suffering come from the mind, from your mind. So your mind is the creator. It’s explained in Abidharmakosha, this is one important subject to study. The various worlds came from the mind, born from the mind. It’s either so hot, or there are landslides or earthquakes. These outside conditions are caused by non-human beings. But that’s not the main cause. The main cause is karma. Karma is the mind; it is not the body. It comes with the mind, not with the body. There is the primary mind and the fifty one mental factors. There are five omnipresent mental factors, in Tibetan, kundro nga, always existing—“omnipresent,” as it’s translated in English is okay but it’s not very exact. Karma is the mental factor intention, which is one of those five.

Yes, of course it can be purified before experiencing the result. Yes, it depends on how perfectly it’s purified, whether you experience some result or not. If purification is perfectly well done, then one never experiences the result of negative karma, suffering is not experienced in this life. Then the next one is that you experience past heavy karma in this life, but not as heavy as experiencing it in the lower realms for many eons. Unbelievable heaviness, but it manifests as some cancer or virus, some chaos to finish. So there will be happiness in the future. These are the benefits of purification.

Kadampa Geshe Kharagpa said, “This small present suffering finishes some past negative karma, then there will be happiness in the future. So therefore, be happy by having this suffering.” I think it means to rejoice and be happy by thinking of the benefits. So not just in one life, but from life to life, you’ll have more and more happiness. Also, you go to enlightenment and are free from samsara. It can happen more and more like that.

So it’s very good to rejoice. You’re experiencing the hottest heat now, but in Bodhgaya, where we have a center, the people who live there go through this every year, so hot. That’s what Roger reminded me. In America it’s a big surprise because it didn’t happen like that before. So you have to know and you have to rejoice. Be happy because your past negative karma is getting purified, purified of the lower realm sufferings, unbelievable sufferings. It finishes like that, so rejoice, be happy.

And not only that, be happy to receive all the numberless sentient beings’ sufferings—the hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, suras, and asuras—to take their suffering on yourself. Experience that suffering and the causes—karma and delusion—and let them be enlightened, the total cessation of obscurations and the completion of realizations.

Experience it for sentient beings rather than thinking, I’m suffering, I’m suffering. Unless of course, you want to fly to Mount Everest. So you see, in the northern hemisphere, in Iceland and in many places, there are huge ice mountains melting down. You hear about this all the time. Why is this happening? It came from the mind, basically. The great enlightened being, Padampa Sangye, who existed during Milarepa’s time said, “It looks like happiness and suffering come from the outside, but they come basically and originally from one’s mind.”

So you can ask, the virus came from China, but why does it have to be experienced in America? Some people have the virus while some people don’t have it—why? Also in the family, the father can die from the virus but not the children and not the mother—why? So you can ask like that.

You want to see yourself as an enlightened being and others as ordinary beings—this is totally ignorant because you don’t understand it came from the mind. Using a very simple example, when you recognize that you’re not well, that you’re sick, you go to the doctor. Because you don’t know how the sickness evolved, you don’t know the details, what happens with the sickness—you have no idea, so you go to see the doctor who knows better than you, who has studied more and who knows more than you. But you say this doctor is totally ignorant because he doesn’t know more than me, he hasn’t stopped suffering and ignorance up to thinking, “I’m an enlightened being,” and you disregard his advice.

So whatever is happening—the extreme weather, whatever it is that totally changes and then there’s suffering, hot, cold, big problems—you experience it for others. If you have intelligence, if you have a lot of merit, then you experience it for sentient beings. In that way you actualize the path to enlightenment. Then not only do you get enlightened but you enlighten other sentient beings. It’s so good, unbelievable. And if you die with that, as His Holiness always says, the best way to die is with bodhichitta.

Kyabje Khunu Lama Rinpoche, the great bodhisattva from whom I received teachings, said in the Praise to Bodhicitta that even if you’re sick, be sick with bodhicitta; even if you die, die with bodhicitta. Whatever happens, that is best. The Kadampa Geshe Chekawa said that he prayed to be born in the hells for sentient beings, but at death time he had visions of the pure land where he’d be reborn. He said, “I didn’t achieve my wish, which was to be born in the hells for sentient beings.” He treated all sentient beings like how you would treat your mother or the most kind person. Their suffering being the most unbearable, he felt it for all sentient beings—for every ant, every mosquito, even the tiniest one, everyone, no matter how big they were—he felt it for everyone.

This is the best way to die and to experience problems. It’s the best way to transform it all into the path for all sentient beings. What else is more happiness than this and more important than this, to be able to benefit numberless sentient beings? It’s ridiculous to take drugs or whatever. It’s like a person who has delusions from spirits, that person is running on the cliffs and in his vision, his view, there’s a big road that goes down to the beach. This is explained by not just one person, but quoted by those who didn’t die. They explained what they have seen, where there’s actually no road, they see a road.

Thank you very, very much. I bring up some words for this situation where everybody is jumping [with anxiety]. There are many stories with the heat, but one can’t jump that much. So please think about what I’ve said. The best is tonglen [taking and giving] and lojong [thought transformation]—the most beneficial. Whatever it is, even death, sickness, or relationship problems, experience it for all sentient beings. That’s the happiest and the hippiest person. 

Thank you very much. Goodbye.

Dictated to Ven. Tenzin Namdrol by Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery, Nepal; transcribed and lightly edited by Wongmo, Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, June 30, 2021. Further edited by FPMT International Office, July 2, 2021.

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.

Learn more about the recent video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation, where you can also find links to videos, transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more.