Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Khachoe Ghakyil Nunnery, Nepal, October 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 video by advising on the proper motivation for listening to the teachings. One should think the following:

The real purpose of my life is to benefit sentient beings. In order to benefit others, I must stop harming them. Then, I will free them from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to full enlightenment, the total cessation of gross and subtle obscurations, and completion of realizations. I will do this by myself alone. In order to accomplish this, I must achieve the state of omniscience. Therefore, I will listen to these teachings on thought transformation, lojong.

Rinpoche then discusses the thousands of animals that are sacrificed during the annual Dashain festival in Nepal, which includes three days of animal sacrifices and which was occuring during the teaching.

Rinpoche asks, How can we expect peace in the world when activities like this continue? Animals are killed every day for people’s pleasure. If sentient beings are continually harmed like this, how can we expect peace? Animals can’t speak, and even if they make noise, people don’t understand them. The people who harm animals intentionally don’t know Dharma. They don’t know that these animals need happiness too and that they don’t want suffering. You can observe that the animals don’t like it, but people continue anyway.

When natural disasters occur, people are surprised, as if there is no cause. But people create the cause. If you explain this, people who don’t know Dharma will think you are crazy. From the side of those who do understand Dharma, worldly behavior is crazy because it causes so much suffering for the self and others.

Rinpoche explains that the merit generated from these teachings is to be dedicated for all those animals who are killed during the Dashain festival.

To generate bodhichitta, you first need to develop strong compassion, like that of a mother for her beloved son who has fallen into a fire pit. Each second that passes while the son is in the fire is too long for her. She can’t stand it even for a second. That’s one example. You should feel like that about the numberless mother sentient beings that are suffering right now in the lower realms. And think, for this reason, for the sake of all of those beings, I must achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible. Once your mind is filled with this motivation effortlessly, you have the realization of bodhichitta.

Rinpoche explains why you meditate on the “right view.” Lama Tsongkhapa said in Three Principal Aspects of the Path:

Without the wisdom realizing ultimate reality,
Even though you have generated renunciation and the mind of enlightenment
You cannot cut the root cause of circling.
Therefore, attempt the method to realize dependent arising.

Phabongkha Rinpoche explained in his commentary on this verse that if you don’t have the wisdom realizing ultimate nature, even if your mind is trained in renunciation and bodhichitta, it cannot cut the root of samsara. Therefore, “attempt the method to realize dependent arising.”

There are many things that people think is meditation on emptiness, but it is not. This is why you have to analyze what you are practicing to determine if it is correct or not. Otherwise, your main practice may never become the remedy for samsara.

To liberation sentient beings from samsara, first you need to find the right view that cuts the root of samsara. Without the view realizing that there is “no self,” you cannot even lessen the delusions. In order to eradicate the root of samsara, ignorance holding the “I,” you definitely need the right view of non-self, no self. Nothing else can pacify delusion, which is cause of cycling in samsara.

To achieve liberation you need to abandon holding the real “I.” In order to abandon that, you need to meditate on the path of no self, which becomes the antidote to the ignorance of apprehending (holding) the “I.” Your practices of charity, morality, and so forth on their own won’t cause you to achieve this realization. Without meditating on no self, you won’t achieve nirvana, liberation.

To achieve liberation from samsara, you need method as well as wisdom. Bodhichitta and right view are necessary to achieve the qualities of a buddha. Bodhichitta is the method, and the complete right view is wisdom. When method and wisdom are separated, you cannot achieve enlightenment. This is like a bird that needs two wings to fly over the ocean.

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 Reasons You Need to Meditate on the Right View”:
https://youtu.be/jZZA_ZD_Plo

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• 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.