Lama Zopa Rinpoche during a video teaching, 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:

Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching discussing the passing of a nun’s father, who died from a heart attack, a month after her mother had died of cancer and COVID-19. Rinpoche reminds us that when we hear about someone passing away it is always good to remember, “I will be the same thing, just a name. All that will be left of me is my name. That’s it, nothing else.” Anytime this can happen, Rinpoche says, and it’s very important to remember.

Even Buddhists don’t practice mindfulness of death, Rinpoche explains. You can discuss emptiness and study philosophy, but the basic first Dharma practice is renouncing attachment to this life and remembering death and impermanence. Even elderly people are shocked that they are going to die. When people you know die, it is an incredibly powerful teaching, reminding you that you can die at any time. If you don’t prepare now, it will be difficult for your mind to be happy when your breath stops.

From Verses of Advice for Meditating on Impermanence by Gungthang Tenpai Dronme:

If, while you have control over your life,
You don’t establish a firm basis for lasting happiness,
When the coming and going of your breathing stops,
It will be difficult for your mind to be happy.

Remembering death and impermanence brings you to Dharma. Even if you make offerings of lunch to hundreds of Maudgalypus and Sharipus, remembering death and impermanence for one second is better than that. Offering lunch won’t make you immediately lose the concept of permanence and remind you of Dharma. Buddha’s very last teaching was impermanence.

Rinpoche then reminds us of our motivation for listening to the teachings. We have total responsibility to free numberless sentient beings from oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to peerless happiness, the total cessation of gross and subtle obscurations and the completion of realizations. So you should think, “Therefore, I must achieve enlightenment to do that perfectly, without the slightest mistake. For that reason, I’m going to listen to the teachings.”

Rinpoche then explains that when our guru passes away we should follow the advice Rinpoche gave in his previous teaching, which is engaging in the six remembrances and doing pujas and practices, including Lama Chopa Tsog. This is incredible purification. If you have any negative karma collected with the guru, it is the greatest purification, and you collect the most extensive merits.

Rinpoche then continues his commentary on The Hundred Clear Realizations of the Glorious One from Narthang starting on page 7 of the teaching’s transcript. One point Rinpoche makes very strongly is that when we make offerings to the Sangha or lay people who are disciples of our own guru, we should think that we are making offerings to the guru’s own pores. First, generate bodhichitta, Ripoche says. Then whatever you are offering, to however many disciples of your guru, think, “I’m making offerings to each pore of my guru.” By doing this, you collect much more merit than if you had made offerings to numberless Buddhas, Dharma, and Sangha, and numberless statues, stupas, or scriptures. Even if you have a billion dollar business—that is nothing compared to doing this.

Rinpoche shares a story about how he offered money to monks in Tibet while thinking they were his root guru. Rinpoche shared that he visualized each monk as his guru while making the offerings.

Rinpoche then offers commentary on these verses from The Hundred Clear Realizations of the Glorious One from Narthang on how to offer and dedicate your roots of virtue to the guru (pages 11-15 of the transcript):

With strong devotion and respect for your guru, think that immeasurable buddhas and bodhisattvas are abiding as your witnesses.

All buddhas and bodhisattvas abiding in the ten directions, please think of me.

Sangha, please think of me.

By our making offerings to the Rare Sublime Ones; offering service to the Sangha, those intent on virtue; giving tormas to the bhutas; taking vows; doing recitations; accomplishing listening, reflecting, and meditating, and so forth; all these roots of virtue of however many merits of virtue and merits of transcendental wisdom have  been collected—made into one and combined together, and then added together—we offer to our guru, the perfect virtuous friend, Gelong/Bodhisattva (insert his/her name), along with the lineage of the Father and Sons.

By making this offering, may the holy views of the gurus, the virtuous friends, be completed more and more. May all objects of abandonments of the graduated paths and bhumis, the obstacles, and the obscurations whatsoever be purified.

By proceeding gradually in the five paths and ten bhumis, may we and others achieve full enlightenment quickly for the sake of all sentient beings.

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 Thinking You Are Offering Them to Your Guru’s Pores“:
https://youtu.be/CCU8bVf7G9w

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• Lama Chopa and Tsog Offering: A Method of Practice According to the Instructions of Lama Zopa Rinpoche
• 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.