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Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi (left) and other Sangha, reciting prayers while circumambulating the stupas 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 part two of Khen Rinpoche Geshe Thubten Chonyi’s life story as well as a continuation of a brief history of Kopan Monastery.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching by asking us: Since anger is the cause of hell, why don’t we put a stop to it? We get so angry over small problems, which cause us eons of the heaviest suffering in samsara. So why don’t we avert it? Even the greatest suffering in the human realm is nothing compared to the suffering of hell. As an example, Rinpoche explains that if you step on a tiny thorn and it penetrates the flesh on your foot in the human realm, the equivalent in hell would be more severe than having 360 sharp spears going through your body.
By understanding the suffering of others we can develop compassion and bodhichitta, qualifying us to liberate numberless beings from samsara and bring them to enlightenment. However, without knowing our own suffering, we cannot understand the suffering of others. Worldly concern, clinging to this life’s happiness, prevents us from renouncing samsara and causes us to continue following attachment, living life in an hallucination.
Without bodhichitta, even if you develop a highly advanced practice, you cannot achieve enlightenment.
As human beings, we cannot stand small problems and difficulties. These hardships are nothing compared to those experienced by animals. They cannot express themselves, so there is no one to help them. We have to develop compassion for animals and benefit them. There are many ways to do this. You can build holy objects that animals can circumambulate to collect merit. If they are small, for example ants or worms, you can take many at a time around holy objects. You can recite mantras for them, offer them blessed water, play sutras they can hear—there are many ways to benefit animals who will suffer not just this one lifetime, but for eons.
Happiness and suffering depend on how you interpret things. If happiness and suffering came from the outside, then everyone would experience things in the same way. However, the same situation can happen to two different people, and their interpretation of it can be completely different—one person angry, the other person happy. This is because it comes from the mind.
We want everyone to be happy toward us and like us. We don’t want anyone to harm us or be displeased with us. This is due to self-cherishing, attachment. Because of that, if someone does harm, insult, or criticize us, we get so upset because the self-cherishing mind doesn’t get what it wants. Instead of getting angry, when someone is unhappy with you, think: This person is the most kind to me because they are helping me destroy the “I” that I hold as real, the thought that my happiness is more important than anyone else’s. This self-cherishing and grasping at “I” has prevented you from achieving even one realization or liberating even one single sentient being and is your real enemy because all of the suffering of samsara from beginningless rebirths up until now is due to thinking in this way. The person who doesn’t like you is so kind and dear because they are helping you destroy the real enemy.
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 “You Need to Know Your Own Suffering, and Happiness and Suffering Depend on Your Interpretation”:
https://youtu.be/uGWZpFlZbes
- Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching “You Need to Know Your Own Suffering, and Happiness and Suffering Depend on Your Interpretation.”
- 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.