Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching during the November Course, Kopan Monastery, December 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

During the 2018 November Course at Kopan Monastery, Lama Zopa Rinpoche outlined how to reach enlightenment based on the lamrim and the importance of studying it. Rinpoche emphasized that merely knowing the lamrim is not enough; it needs to be applied in daily life. Here’s an excerpt from Rinpoche’s teachings.

Practice mindfulness and the three principal aspects of the path to enlightenment—renunciation, bodhicitta, and right view. Then everything done with renunciation becomes the cause of liberation and does not become the cause of samsara. Then everything done with bodhichitta becomes the cause of enlightenment. Then with right view, everything becomes a remedy to samsara, a remedy to ignorance, which is the root of all your suffering, your samsara, the root of all your sufferings of samsara. It eliminates that; that’s what you need.

If you don’t like suffering, you have to put in effort to actualize emptiness, if you don’t like suffering. If you don’t like depression, if you don’t like any suffering, even diarrhea, whatever you don’t like, then you need to meditate on emptiness, and in particular you have to put effort into realizing emptiness. Study emptiness, all the extensive philosophy teachings, then lamrim, the essence, the short teachings, very important teachings.

You need to not only study—you leave it up to the intellect, you leave it up to the tape recorder, you invest so much information, you put in a tape recorder or computer—not like that. You invest in your brain so much information, but no practice, you only discuss, only to be an important professor—not like that. You need to actualize. So everything becomes practice, and through practice, you actualize. Everything becomes the antidote to your samsara, to your ignorance, which is the root of your samsara. So it eliminates the root of oceans of suffering of samsara. That’s what you need. If you don’t like suffering, you need to put effort in that. It’s extremely worthwhile.

Not only that, not only to free yourself from oceans of suffering of samsara, not only that, but with the help of bodhichitta, you collect inconceivable, inconceivable, inconceivable merits, with that support. Then with the wisdom realizing emptiness, you directly cease the obscuration, not only gross but subtle obscuration. Then you achieve enlightenment for sentient beings, and you are able to liberate all sentient beings from oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring everyone to buddhahood.

If you don’t like suffering, if you have problems—a relationship problem, a problem with the family, with the husband, with the wife or children, with friends, whatever—you should know that. The antidote—to be free from the suffering of samsara—you need to be free from delusion and karma; you need to be free from ignorance, the root of samsara. So you need to meditate on emptiness. That is what you need.  

Otherwise, your problems have no end. Then you rely on psychology. It has no end, relying on psychology or psychiatry. It has no end. Your going to hospital has no end; it’s endless. Your going to hospital, having an operation on your brain, it’s endless. It becomes endless. That is the nature of samsara.

When you have problems, think: “Oh, this is a sign that I’m in samsara. This shows me. This proves it to me. It is sign that I’m in samsara. So, oh, I need to be free from samsara, so then I should practice Dharma.” It should have that as a conclusion.

The conclusion you should come to is that. To actualize Dharma, the heart of Buddhadharma—renunciation, bodhichitta, right view—you should come to the conclusion to practice lamrim. You should come to that conclusion, then that is the best.

You have something to do that is most worthwhile for you and every sentient being—every hell being, they are numberless, for everyone, to benefit every ant, every fish, every chicken, every goat, sheep, what we eat, to benefit every mosquito, every small ant, small flies, so tiny, but numberless, to everyone, to benefit, especially with bodhichitta, then, every human being, every sura being, every asura being, every intermediate state being. Then instead of depression, you have so much happiness in life, because you know what to do, you know what you should do. You know the meaning of life!

Watch the 24-minute video of Rinpoche teaching at Kopan Monastery from which this excerpt is taken:

Colophon: Excerpted from Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, December 12, 2018. Simultaneously transcribed by Ven. Joan Nicell. Lightly edited by Laura Miller, July 2019. (Complete unedited transcript here.)

Lamrim Year is an essential guide for meditators who want to develop their mind in the graduated path to enlightenment (lamrim). This unique study program provides a 365-day outline of the graduated path in a clear, practical format that is suitable for both individual and group practice. The daily quotes and text have been selected from four decades of teachings by Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and offer a taste of their teaching style and scope:  lamrimyear.com

You can access all the video teachings from Lama Zopa Rinpoche during the 2018 Kopan lamrim meditation course: 
fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/kopan-november-course-2018