Lama Zopa Rinpoche doing his first video teaching for 2021, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, March 2021. 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 extending his wishes that he hopes everyone had a nice long break from the teaching series (since December 16, 2020) and that we all are doing very well and using our time in a meaningful and beneficial way.

Rinpoche then extends those same wishes to every hell being, every hungry ghost, and every animal, including even the smallest insects and plankton. Rinpoche then reminds us that we have all been plankton numberless times in past lives. In fact, we have even been viruses numberless times! Rinpoche explains that since these tiny beings spread diseases such as COVID-19, we also have been those tiny beings numberless times, spreading diseases to others from beginningless rebirths. We have also been tigers and tiny biting insects numberless times, harming others, eating others, doing ugly actions, and creating fear.

It’s important to think about karma because it helps to recognize that life is not real, it’s more like a dream. If you think of the karma of being born as those beings in the lower realms, it is impossible to waste even a second of our precious human life distracted by attachment to pleasures of this life. Just like while you are dreaming, you believe everything is real when you are living your life. Only when you wake up, do you realize that everything is not as it appears. One day, when you are getting ready to die, you will realize that this life has been like a dream. Life happens, then is gone. We have to meditate on emptiness to recognize that life is a hallucination. Otherwise, we cheat ourselves every moment of every day by having a completely wrong concept. This is why it is so important to practice holy Dharma, so we don’t cheat ourselves. We have abused ourselves since beginningless rebirths.

Rinpoche then begins teaching us on what to do on the anniversary of our guru’s passing.

First, Rinpoche reminds us of the correct motivation for listening to the teachings, which is for happiness and not suffering. This is not for the temporary happiness of this life or even the happiness of liberation from samsara. The real purpose is to bring all the numberless sentient beings to Buddhahood—the total cessation of obscurations and completion of realizations. In order to do this, we must achieve omniscience. Without that, we can’t do perfect work for others without there being mistakes. We have to have perfect power to reveal the methods to gather sentient beings and complete compassion to embrace every sentient being in every realm. For this reason, we listen to the teachings, to achieve this.

Rinpoche then offers commentary on The Hundred Clear Realizations of the Glorious One from Narthang.

It is extremely meaningful to make offerings on the anniversary of your guru’s passing away, Rinpoche explains. You collect far greater merit by making offerings to the guru then you do by making offerings to all the three-time buddhas.

There are six benefits of making offerings on the anniversary of your guru’s passing away. The Hundred Clear Realizations of the Glorious One from Narthang offers the great Kadampa geshe Sharawa’s citation from Guhyasamaja and Vairochana’s Net of Magical Illusion:

1. You complete your guru’s holy wishes.
2. You purify the negative karmas and obscurations collected in dependence on the guru.
3. You achieve extensive merits.
4. In future lives, you meet gurus.
5. You become an object to be subdued by gurus.
6. You quickly cease your samsara.

Rinpoche offers commentary on each of these points and you can read this commentary in detail in the transcript of this teaching, starting at page 13.

When you make these offerings, you make them with the six remembrances:

1. Remembering the aspect of the guru’s holy body when he was alive.
2. Remembering that, first, after taking ordination, [your guru] was precise in the three higher trainings, and remember the qualities of the holy mind of [possessing] the transmitted teachings and direct realizations.
3. Remembering the liberation stories of the divine teaching lineage of Great Jowo [Atisha], the Dharma tradition of great capable beings, which is not shared with other systems of the great charioteers.
4. Remembering [the guru’s] kindness, thinking that all the perfections of samsara and beyond samsara, such as your own happiness, come from the guru.
5. Remembering [the guru’s] blessing, thinking that everything you wish, such as being able to think of Dharma, is the blessing of the guru.
6. Remembering to devote yourself [to the guru], imagining and bringing to mind that the guru and Buddha are not different.

Rinpoche offers commentary on each of these points, and we recommend following along in the transcript starting on page 17.

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 “Make Offerings on the Anniversary of Your Guru’s Passing Away”:
https://youtu.be/Zh__457vmZs

• • Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
  • Find Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, and Russian
  • 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 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.