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Lama Zopa Rinpoche during incense puja on top of hill at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, August 2020. 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 reminding us that remembering death and impermanence encourages us to practice right now. This is not just about having fear about dying, but encouraging you to practice Dharma now, not when you get old. Thinking that way assumes that you will not die young, and there is no promise of this. So many people who thought they would live for many years end up dying today.
At the time of death nothing can benefit you other than Dharma. The people surrounding you at the time of death can’t be brought with you, nor your possessions—not even your body that you cherish most. You can’t carry one atom of this life with you. Only holy Dharma can benefit you at the time of death, nothing else.
The conclusion is to practice holy Dharma whatever you are doing: eating, using the toilet, drinking, walking, sitting, sleeping—everything has to become holy Dharma, not worldly dharma.
By meditating on death and impermanence, you know how to subdue your mind. You won’t see any purpose for getting angry. You can die at any time, so why create additional negative karma?
Since beginningless rebirths you have been harming, killing, and suffering. If you meditate on impermanence, you don’t see any purpose for desire or attachment. You realize your mind cheated you by following attachment and by using everything, including your body, merits, possessions, and the people in your life, the wrong way with the wrong concept. So subdue your mind by meditating on death and impermanence.
If you believe that you won’t die, no matter how much Dharma you know, your life is no different than that of an animal. Even if you have a hundred qualities, if you believe this life is permanent, you are no different than an insect or a tiger. Somebody harms them, they harm back. If you don’t think of death and impermanence, all of your hard work becomes for this life’s happiness only, nothing you do becomes holy Dharma. However, by remembering death and impermanence, whatever you do becomes holy Dharma. If you mix activities of this life and holy Dharma, you will lose holy Dharma due to focusing on the happiness of this life. All mistakes happen due to not having the thought of death and impermanence.
Rinpoche then offers the oral transmission of Phabongkha Rinpoche’s The Heart’s Utmost Need and offers some commentary on this poignant meditation, which discusses the reality that death will arrive for every single one of us.
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 One Mistake Is Not Remembering Impermanence Death”:
https://youtu.be/YO6e5K-GZ2U
- Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
- The Heart’s Utmost Need: Persuading Oneself and Others to Remember Impermanenc and Death by Phabongkha Rinpoche
- Rinpoche discusses the difference between worldly dharma and holy Dharma in the transcript of the teaching “Transforming the Mind into Guru Devotion and Renouncing the Eight Worldly Dharmas.”
- 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 translation, 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.