Lama Zopa Rinpoche recording a recent video teachings, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, April 2021. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. A Note About Safety: All who attended this teaching with Rinpoche have tested negative for COVID-19, are wearing masks, and are socially distanced from one another in the room where Rinpoche teaches.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues offering advice for Sangha in this new teaching. Here is a summary of it:

Rinpoche begins this teaching instructing that when reciting the prayers “Taking Refuge and Generating Bodhichitta,” you should recite, “tshog nam kyi” instead of “so nam kyi.”

SANG GYÄ CHHÖ DANG TSHOG KYI CHHOG NAM LA
JANG CHHUB BAR DU DAG NI KYAB SU CHHI
DAG GI CHHÖ NYEN GYI PÄI TSHOG NAM KYI
DRO LA PHÄN CHHIR SANG GYÄ DRUB PAR SHOG

I take refuge until I am enlightened
In the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Supreme Assembly.
By my collections of merits and wisdom of listening to the Dharma,
May I become a buddha to benefit transmigratory beings. (3x)

Rinpoche then explains that people do all kinds of things for pleasure: eating delicious food, drinking alcohol, taking drugs, having sex, sleeping, or engaging in activities like hang gliding and parachuting. It is very important to meditate on how samsaric pleasures are in the nature of suffering. The experience doesn’t last, doesn’t increase, doesn’t stay; it is the suffering of change. When the pleasure decreases, it becomes the suffering of pain. By understanding this, you see samsaric pleasure as suffering. Then you have no attachment to it. Your mind becomes free from attachment and achieves inner peace and contentment. 

The suffering of pain and the suffering of change come from pervasive compounding suffering. It is called pervasive suffering because the aggregates are pervaded by suffering due to being under the control of delusion and karma. Another meaning of pervasive suffering is that there is suffering from the eighth hot hell up to the Tip of Samsara (one of the four formless realms). It is called compounding suffering because the aggregates contain the seed of delusion and karma. The main suffering that Buddhists need to be free from is pervasive compounding suffering. If you become free from it by actualizing the path—like the four noble truths, the true path and the true cessation of suffering—then you are totally free from the other two, the suffering of pain and the suffering of change.

Rinpoche reminds us what he taught in his last video, that Sangha are the real heroes by defeating the delusions. As Sangha, you are conquering the suffering of rebirth, the suffering of sickness, the suffering of old age, the suffering of death—and also the suffering of change and pervasive compounding suffering. Further, Sangha cause other sentient beings to defeat delusion, the cause of suffering.

When your mind is weak and you are thinking to disrobe, you should remember that you are a hero! A hero is not what the government or outside world considers a hero (such as those depicted in statues who have killed many people). Sangha are the real heroes and heroines. You took this incredible opportunity to be a hero over all the delusions to defeat, control, and cease  the oceans of suffering of each realm. Rinpoche asks, “If that isn’t a hero, then what is!?”

Rinpoche says that monks and nuns should rejoice and enjoy life as Sangha. Make your aim and what you want to achieve clear.

Rinpoche then explains the four general ways to prevent downfalls, including knowing your vows and applying the remedy to your strongest delusion.

In video 48 of this thought transformation series, Rinpoche explained the four ways to prevent downfalls based on the text Ox Horn Prediction (Lang Ru Lungten):

1. Continuously possessing conscientiousness
2. Having great respect for the vows of morality
3. Knowing the vows
4. Striving in the remedy to the delusions

Rinpoche offers specific ways to control the delusions and keep your morality pure. If you have some understanding of emptiness and practice mindfulness of emptiness, this is very helpful to control your delusions and not damage your morality. Otherwise, you are defeated by delusion. Your self-cherishing thought has been a dictatorship. Your attachment has been a dictatorship. You don’t realize this so you happily follow your excitement, which is a very big hallucination.

Everything comes from your mind. Objects—forms, sounds, smells, tastes, tangibles—all that we see every day comes from our mind. Also, the thoughts, the knower, the mind—they also come from the mind! Samsara and nirvana, permanent and impermanent phenomena, everything comes from the mind. Doing mindfulness meditation on how everything comes from the mind protects you from having a crazy life. This is a very important and profound meditation, a great deep discovery.

Another important meditation is practicing mindfulness that any harm you experience is the result of you having harmed others in the past. Recite, “Nobody harms you if you haven’t harmed others in the past” like a mantra.

Nothing you experience is the fault of others, Rinpoche reminds us. Even unpleasant environments are the possessed results of the ten non-virtues. Further, any abuse you receive is due to your own mistake of not having practiced Dharma. There is nothing to complain about—the only thing to complain about is your own mind. If you haven’t met Dharma in past lives and didn’t practice Dharma in this life, then you create all this negative karma of harming others. It is ridiculous to think that nobody is allowed to harm you, but you are allowed to harm others. It is good to meditate on karma when you receive harm and to remember that this is due to harming others in the past. In fact, you feel compassion when you understand that any harm you receive is the result of your past karma. There is no anger at all! You want to help in whatever way you can, for example—you can recite OM MANI PADME HUM for that person, to purify them.

You can say goodbye to anger completely when you meditate on the I being merely labeled by the mind. Nothing more than the merely imputed I experiences suffering and happiness. Anything more than the merely imputed I is a total hallucination. This concept that the I is not merely imputed is the root of all suffering, including the coronavirus.

Rinpoche explains how this happens: The mind merely imputes “I” on the aggregates. Then, in the next second, the negative imprint—left on the mental continuum from beginningless rebirths by the ignorance holding the I as real—decorates, or projects, on the merely labeled I, making it appear real. When it appears back, the merely labeled I appears as real, truly existent, existing from its own side, existing by itself. So a “real” I appears. You don’t remember that it was merely labeled by the mind just the second before, the shortest time before. Then, it appears, but you don’t recognize it’s a hallucination. You believe a hundred percent that this hallucination is true—that this real I is a hundred percent true! This is the root of your samsara. The concept that the I is not merely existent, that itself is so subtle. That itself, that concept, is the root of your samsara! It is the root of all your suffering!

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 “Rejoice and Enjoy Your Life as a Sangha!“:
https://youtu.be/-q04fOXxHrQ

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• Learn more about the monks and nuns of FPMT, including opportunities to offer support and information on Sangha communities and how to become a monk or nun
• 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.