Lama Zopa Rinpoche recording a recent video teachings, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, April 2021. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. A Note About Safety: All who attended this teaching with Rinpoche have tested negative for COVID-19, are wearing masks, and are socially distanced from one another in the room where Rinpoche teaches.

Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:

Rinpoche begins this teaching explaining that a student had requested some advice and encouragement for ordained Sangha. But, of course, much of this advice is also relevant for lay students.

Rinpoche explains that a good environment is very helpful for building up the brave heart of a hero or heroine who can overcome problems and really practice Dharma by overcoming attachment and delusion. However even when there is an environment with external pollution and diseases, these things don’t cause you to be reborn in the lower realms. It is non-virtue that causes this. It is when negative karma is stronger than positive karma that you are reborn in the lower realms.

By meditating on and actualizing the three principal aspects of the path, you say goodbye to the suffering of the lower realms and samsara. Escaping these sufferings depends on whether or not you practice Dharma, whether you meditate on and practice lamrim—guru devotion, renunciation, purification, bodhichitta, and understanding ultimate reality correctly. For some people, as soon as the Dharma book closes, Dharma becomes far off in the distance. If you like suffering and don’t want happiness, then you don’t have to be concerned with what is good and bad.

Spending money and time to take care of yourself is not the ultimate answer. So many resources are wasted making the body healthy and fit, but this doesn’t actually stop your problems, Rinpoche explains. It doesn’t stop cancer or the virus. If you have the karma for these things and it is not purified, you will get it. But you can do what is best for yourself and every single sentient being. Your life can become the worst, or it can become the best—this is up to you!

There are many who call themselves Buddhist, who may meditate on emptiness, but if they don’t have the karma to learn about bodhichitta, to practice it, and actualize it, then they aren’t really Buddhist. The same is true for learning the correct view of emptiness.

In the West, even if you finish university, you don’t have an idea of what a being is. You don’t have a clear idea of what the mind is. But by studying Dharma you learn about this. The basis to be labeled “I” is the aggregates. We have all the five aggregates—the aggregates of form, feeling, cognition, compounded aggregates, and consciousness. Then, relating to any of these five aggregates, the I, or the being, is that which is labeled.

The Svatantrika view is that there is no I from the aggregates, but the thought that places the label “I” on the aggregates is very strong. Rinpoche explains that the thought labels “I” so powerfully that it exists. This is the Svatantrika view. There is no I from the aggregates, but there is a real I, existing from its own side, on these aggregates that is powerfully imputed by the mind. This, Rinpoche explains is their understanding of nontruly existent, the emptiness of I. The Prasangika view is that there is no real I on the aggregates at all, that the I exists much more subtly, it exists only in mere name.

Reality is totally different from what appears to us and what we believe, which is all a hallucination. The meditation on emptiness is like this; it is not easy to understand. You have to have a lot of merit to understand this, to realize this. Even ants are living in a hallucination. What a being thinks exists is merely labeled by the mind.

Lama Tsongkhapa did so many hundred thousand prostrations to the Thirty-Five Buddhas. The great Milarepa bore so many hardships to practice. If you read the life story of any great lama who has realized the path, you will see how many hardships they overcame to actualize the lamrim and achieve enlightenment.

Your daily mindfulness meditation should be that there is nothing there appearing from the object’s side. There is no enemy, no real friend. There is no real “this” there! By meditating on dependent arising, you destroy ignorance and all the delusions.

Those who don’t read Tibetan may think that whatever they read about meditation in English books is the best. But without a correct guide, there can be a hundred thousand explanations, but you won’t know which is correct. For those who can read Dharma books in Tibetan, it is like having a third eye because you can learn so much by yourself; you can read Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings yourself. Ordained Western Sangha within FPMT are so fortunate because they have received teachings from gurus who are the embodiment of all the buddhas. Therefore, Rinpoche is stressing—Western Sangha are unbelievably fortunate.

However, it isn’t easy being Sangha in the West. As many can’t live in a monastic situation and have to live alone or with family, this makes it very difficult, and many disrobe. People don’t have devotion. There are many obstacles. People don’t understand your life; they don’t know what you are doing. So, it is a very difficult life to be a nun or a monk in the West. For Tibetan monks and nuns in the Tibetan community, it is easier to get help, especially at the monasteries where they live.

In Buddhist countries, everyone respects the Sangha. But in the West, Buddhism is new. In Buddhist countries, lay people’s respect for the Sangha helps protect Sangha, and we don’t have that in the West. Of course, how people (and even animals) in the West view the Sangha depends on imprints from past lives. Nowadays, many people respect His Holiness the Dalai Lama, so they also respect the Sangha.

Rinpoche mentions that Sangha should not be messy and should keep themselves very neat. If your inner life is messy, your outside will also be messy. This discourages other people. They will think, “Oh, this is a Buddhist.” You have to be a good example and behave correctly. The external manner helps others have devotion and to appreciate Buddhism.

The Sangha should also not act like they are carrying a heavy load. When you do that, outside people can degenerate their faith and they can criticize Sangha. Instead of growing their faith, the opposite happens, and they think there is so much suffering. It is very important to think of others, to think of the world. You can bring so much happiness and peace, and cause devotion to rise for the Sangha, the Buddha, the Dharma. It depends so much on how you act, how you behave, on whether or not you have a pure heart.

The Westerners who become monks and nuns are incredible heroes. You have to know that—you are a hero! There are so many obstacles, but in spite of that, if you want to become a monk or nun and practice—this is a hero! It doesn’t matter whatever the world, the outside people, or your parents think, such as that you are bad or strange. You are very brave and courageous! You don’t care about what the world thinks. You follow Dharma to stop being reborn in the lower realms and to get a higher rebirth, to stop samsara, then for liberation from samsara, free from lower nirvana, then to achieve great enlightenment for sentient beings, to help sentient beings. WOW! That is a HERO!

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 “Western Monks and Nuns Are the Real Heroes and Heroines“:
https://youtu.be/zenv1CT_nwg

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• Learn more about the monks and nuns of FPMT, including opportunities to offer support and information on Sangha communities and how to become a monk or nun
• 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.