Lama Zopa Rinpoche giving an online teaching, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, July 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 two important and powerful holy objects.

First, Rinpoche discussed the three-story Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche) statue being built in Maratika, Nepal, to pacify war, famine, and disease—and, of course, for all the six-realm sentient beings, who have been suffering from beginningless rebirths, to be free from samsara and achieve enlightenment.

Then, Rinpoche discusses the Maitreya Buddha statue being built in Bodhgaya, India, on the land offered to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. This statue is also being built to pacify war, famine, and disease.

Rinpoche explains that one can never know what is going to happen. There are earthquakes, landslides, flooding, and other disasters of the elements. There can also be viruses, famine, war—all kinds of things can happen in samsara. Even in places like Germany, no one expected flash floods there, but they occurred. These dangers actually come from people’s minds, from their karma. So even in an area where a certain disaster wouldn’t be expected, it can happen. Most people don’t have the merit to understand karma, so they believe in the wrong things and attribute causes to the wrong things.

Because Buddhism explains the mind, studying it is important, Rinpoche says, even if you don’t believe it! Even if you are not practicing or believing, you are developing wisdom by studying the Dharma.

Due to practicing Dharma, karma can ripen as suffering in this life rather than in the hell realm. This is due to purification from practicing virtue. Instead of having to experience the heaviest suffering for eons, the karma ripens as some catastrophe in this life, and then there will be happiness in the future.

Rinpoche illustrates this point, quoting Kadampa Geshe Kharag Gomchung from Mind Training: The Seventy-Two Exhortations:

Even this small present suffering
Finishes past heavy negative karma,
And then in the future there will be happiness.
Therefore, feel happy with your suffering.

Rinpoche then discusses verses 85–87 from Lama Chopa:

Being afraid of the blazing suffering of the lower realms,
Please bless me to voluntarily persevere in
Going for refuge from my heart to the Three Rare Sublime Ones,
Abandoning negative karma, and practicing all the collections of virtue.

Violently tossed by the waves of afflicted actions and disturbing thoughts,
Harmed by the many water lions of the three types of suffering,
Please bless me to generate a strong wish to be liberated
From the endless and terrifying great ocean of samsara.

The first verse means we must make this perfect human rebirth truly meaningful. Then, we request the guru for blessings to go for refuge, abandon negative karma, and practice virtue. Rinpoche uses Milarepa as an example of how to practice this. Milarepa took on hardships purposefully. Many thought he was very poor and had nothing—but he achieved the whole path to enlightenment. Many people might think, “I have a job, I have money, I have an education.” They achieved whatever they needed to achieve, but they are still suffering in samsara because they don’t know Dharma.

Rinpoche emphasizes that it is so important to request the guru for blessings to generate a strong wish to be liberated from the great ocean of samsara. We should request this single-pointedly, making the strongest request.

This is the motivation we should have for listening to the teachings.

Rinpoche reminds us that our personal suffering in samsara is nothing compared to that of numberless sentient beings, who have suffered since beginningless rebirths. Practicing the higher training of morality is the foundation for helping all the numberless sentient beings. We are solely responsible for freeing them from oceans of samsaric suffering and bringing them to full enlightenment.

In order to do this, we need to achieve enlightenment so that we can do perfect work for others. To do this we need to be free from samsara. And to do that we must actualize the three higher trainings of morality, concentration, and wisdom. Rinpoche explains that the higher training of morality is the very foundation, and so it is most important to practice morality. “So therefore, now SANGHA—for yourself to end samsara as quickly as possible and achieve enlightenment to help numberless sentient beings, so then it is better to be a monk or nun,” Rinpoche concludes.

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 “The Higher Training of Morality Is the Foundation for Helping Sentient Beings”:
https://youtu.be/beY7voGsWXE

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• Links to Lama Chopa practices and commentary
• 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/

You can read a summary of Rinpoche’s thought transformation teachings given in 2020 in the Mandala 2021 article “The Time to Practice Is Now: Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Thought Transformation Teachings During the Time of COVID-19.”

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.