Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching in Moscow, Russia, May 2017. Photo by Renat Alyaudinov.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche composed a long and detailed letter for FPMT Annual Review 2017: Serving the Teachings of the Buddha. We’re happy to share part of Rinpoche’s four-page letter, which was written in January 2018 in Tso Pema, Himachal Pradesh, India: 

My most precious, most kind, most dear, wish-fulfilling directors, students, benefactors, and friends,

Here, I am dropping some news from the sky—for some it will be new, for some it will be old teachings.

Firstly, from the bottom of my heart and bones, thank you numberless times for all your service; dedication; practice of holy Dharma with your body, speech, and mind; and for your devotion and good heart.

The ultimate aim is to benefit sentient beings, whose minds are obscured and suffering, and for them to achieve happiness in this life and happiness in future lives, then the ultimate happiness of liberation from samsara and of buddhahood, the total cessation of obscurations and completion of realizations. Therefore, sentient beings receive all the peace and happiness up to enlightenment by serving the teachings of Buddha, so that the teachings exist continually and develop, and also by serving the Sangha, who preserve and spread Dharma in this world.

So here, mostly we have been able to help by building monasteries and nunneries, making offerings to holy objects, helping the Sangha with Dharma education and survival, and offering help to the elderly and to schools.

As Buddha said:

Any sentient being who, during the period of my teachings,
Makes charity well (even if the material is the size of a hair),
For 80,000 eons there will be great results of great enjoyment:
No pain, no disease, and enjoyment of happiness.
Like that, one will be enriched with the desirable things.
At the end, you can actually achieve the result: the peerless cessation and completion (enlightenment).

After hearing that there is this great result, who wouldn’t want to collect merit? This is just to get some idea of the benefits.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche blessing the fish in the lake and doing prayers, Tso Pema, India, January 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Now, in regard to making offerings to the guru, and not just me Guru Mickey Mouse, but to anyone from whom you have received Dharma contact with the recognition of guru-disciple: Just by offering scented smell to the pores of the guru’s holy body you collect so much unbelievable merit, more than from having made extensive offerings to numberless Buddha, Dharma, Sangha and numberless statues, stupas, and scriptures. 

As I normally mention, compared to other people, your own parents are a more powerful object with which to collect merit. That’s why you can experience the result in this life of whatever service you did for your parents in this life. The good karma is so powerful that you can start to experience the result—happiness and success—in this life. The negative karma that is created in relation to your parents, such as by complaining to or harming your parents, even a very little, is very, very heavy, and you start to experience the suffering in this life. You experience the suffering result not only in this life but in future lives as well for 500 lifetimes.

After that, ordained Sangha are a more powerful object than your parents. Then more powerful than ordained Sangha are arhats. Then more powerful than numberless arhats is one bodhisattva, one who has generated bodhichitta. It is said by Buddha in the sutras and also quoted in the lamrim commentaries that if you don’t have bodhichitta and you glare at a bodhisattva just one time, the negative karma is so heavy that it is like having taken out the eyeballs of all the sentient beings of the three realms (desire realm, form realm, and formless realm). If you look at one bodhisattva with a devoted, calm mind, with respectful eyes, then you collect merit like having made charity of your eyes to all the sentient beings in the three realms. (This is in regard to how one bodhisattva is extremely powerful, more powerful than numberless arhats, whether you harm the bodhisattva or make offerings or offer service.)

After that, even more powerful is one buddha. One buddha is more powerful than numberless bodhisattvas. From even a small act of disrespect towards one buddha, the negative karma is unbelievably heavy; and from just a little service, a little respect toward one buddha, the result is unbelievable happiness. This is because one buddha is more powerful than numberless bodhisattvas.

Tso Pema, Himachal Pradesh, India, January 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Now to the guru—not just anyone known in the world as a guru but the guru with whom you have a Dharma connection, a guru-disciple connection—offering just a little service, as I mentioned before, has the greatest benefit, more benefit than from making offerings to numberless Buddha, Dharma, Sangha and numberless statues, stupas, and scriptures. This is not just offering the guru service, but also fulfilling the guru’s wishes and advice.

It is mentioned in the lamrim teachings that each time one makes an offering to the guru, even a small nut or a glass of water, one becomes closer to enlightenment. So, you have to figure out the value of the rest, such as offering service and the offerings that you make, from this. Then, there is no hesitation to say that you do the greatest purification and collect the greatest merit by fulfilling the guru’s wishes and following his advice and teachings. For example, every day, every hour, every minute, every second that you keep your vows or recite mantras or offer any service, you become closer and closer to enlightenment. …

Read the entire letter from Lama Zopa Rinpoche in FPMT Annual Review 2017:
https://issuu.com/fpmtinc/docs/fpmt_ar_2017_issuu/2

We invite you to read FPMT Annual Review 2017: Serving the Teachings of the Buddha, now available online in eZine and PDF formats:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/annual-review/

See photo highlights from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s 2017:
https://fpmt.org/teachers/zopa/gallery/lama-zopa-rinpoches-2017/

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.