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Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, May 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings from Kopan Monastery in Nepal during the coronavirus pandemic. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:
This video begins with a moving piece on Kopan Monastery’s health clinic. Ven. Thubten Gyatso, director of Thubten Shedrup Ling Monastery in Australia, shares the history of the clinic, which he ran during the monastery’s early days. Then Ven. Sangye Tenzin, the head of the Department of Health for Kopan Monastery and Nunnery, discusses the many ways the clinic serves the monks, nuns, and international students at Kopan, as well as the local community and also people in rural areas.
Rinpoche begins this teaching explaining that by transforming unfavorable conditions and difficulties into ultimate happiness with bodhichitta and with right view, anything we experience in this life—including cancer, viruses, relationship problems, sickness, depression, and so forth—becomes the remedy for us to be free from samsara.
By seeing the guru as Buddha, one is able to correctly follow the guru with thought and action. Our lazy mind makes it so difficult to follow the guru’s advice, Rinpoche explains, even though doing so is the quickest way to achieve enlightenment. By seeing the guru as all the buddhas, and by remembering the guru’s kindness, which is like the limitless sky, you are most happy to follow the advice because you see its importance and the great benefits it brings. By offering service to the guru, you receive more merit than if you made offerings to numberless buddhas, Dharma, and Sangha. Even a small gesture like offering shoes or a cup of water to the guru is more merit than offering to numberless statues, stupas, and scriptures.
The blessings of buddhas cannot be received without a guru. The benefit of correctly practicing guru devotion is that it liberates you from oceans of samsaric sufferings and brings you to enlightenment. By pleasing the guru your negative karma is burned up in a second.
A serious practitioner’s mind is strong and nothing can distract it. They are determined to follow the guru’s advice in order to help all sentient beings. It is the most important thing to do, Rinpoche explains. It is not only for happiness in your life, it is to help others. Worldly thoughts are all excuses to achieve life pleasures for yourself.
The eight worldly dharmas are the source of all problems. Understanding the difference between worldly dharma and holy Dharma is so important. Otherwise, what happens is that you spend your whole life thinking you are practicing holy Dharma, but due to your misunderstanding, it becomes worldly dharma, clinging to this life’s pleasure.
The antidote to the eight worldly dharmas is meditation on impermanence and death.
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 “Transforming the Mind into Guru Devotion and Renouncing the Eight Worldly Dharmas”:
https://youtu.be/C3XGOwCiMn8
- Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching “Transforming the Mind into Guru Devotion and Renouncing the Eight Worldly Dharmas.”
- Door to Satisfaction by Lama Zopa Rinpoche
- Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings
Find more advice and video teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche from Kopan Monastery during the COVID-19 crisis and also links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, 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.