Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Sera Monastery, India, December 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

FPMT International Office has just published the FPMT Annual Review 2015: Serving the World with a Bodhichitta Attitude as a PDF and as an ezine. Please enjoy Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s letter to FPMT students and supporters taken from this year’s review:

My most dear, most kind, most precious wish-fulfilling ones,

From Lama Tsongkhapa’s “Three Principal Aspects of the Path”:

Even if renunciation has been developed, 
If it is not possessed by the mind of enlightenment 
It does not become the cause of the perfect bliss of unsurpassed enlightenment. 
Therefore the wise generate the supreme mind of enlightenment.

Swept away by the current of the four powerful rivers, 
Tied by the tight bonds of karma, so hard to undo, 
Caught in the iron net of self-grasping, 
Completely enveloped by the total darkness of ignorance, 

Endlessly reborn in cyclic existence, 
Ceaselessly tormented by the three sufferings –
Thinking that all mothers are in such a condition, 
Generate the supreme mind of enlightenment. 

First of all, we have all experienced this numberless times. Numberless times we have suffered like this, from beginningless time and will continue to unless one realizes the true suffering, the true cause of suffering, the true cessation of suffering and the true path. If one doesn’t get to actualize the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, then one will have to experience these sufferings of samsara numberless times and endlessly. So that means being in the ocean of suffering of the six realms. Already we have experienced it numberless times from beginningless lives, and we will have to experience this numberless times without end.

This is so terrifying, most terrifying, most terrifying! To have to be reborn in samsara again, even one more time, it is most terrifying. To be in samsara even for one more day, even one hour, even one millisecond, it is most horrible, most terrifying, if you realize that samsara is only in the nature of suffering and that being in samsara is like being in the midst of molten iron – the very hot, red, iron fire.

We have been hallucinating in samsara, looking at it as pleasurable. The suffering we experience now in samsara is nothing compared to the suffering of numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless suras, numberless asuras and numberless intermediate state beings, not only what they are suffering right now but also what they have suffered numberless times from beginningless rebirths.

Even if renunciation has been developed, 
If it is not possessed by the mind of enlightenment 
It does not become the cause of the perfect bliss of unsurpassed enlightenment. 
Therefore the wise generate the supreme mind of enlightenment.

Swept away by the current of the four powerful rivers, 
Tied by the tight bonds of karma, so hard to undo, 
Caught in the iron net of self-grasping, 
Completely enveloped by the total darkness of ignorance, 

Similarly sentient beings have experienced this suffering numberless times, the oceans of suffering of the six realms. They haven’t received a perfect human rebirth and haven’t met a perfectly qualified Mahayana guru. Some have, but their number is nothing compared to numberless sentient beings who haven’t received a perfect human rebirth, met the Buddhadharma and met a perfectly qualified Mahayana guru who reveals the unmistaken path. So like this, they will have to suffer again in the ocean of suffering of the six realms, again and again, numberless times, endlessly in samsara.

It is said by the great yogi Heruka Kyabje Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo in “Calling the Guru from Afar”:

Thinking of the plight of my pitiful old mothers, pervasive as space, 
Fallen amidst the fearful ocean of samsara and tormented there – reminds me of you, Lama.

Therefore, Lama, please bless me to generate in my mental continuum 
Effortless experience of the profound three principles of the path and the two stages.

Here you can understand what to do, what is the best way to help sentient beings, who are numberless, even to help just one sentient being; so this is the best thing. Here the FPMT organization’s main effort is to create the causes for sentient beings to have realizations of the gradual path to enlightenment and to actualize the gradual path to enlightenment, the gradual method and the gradual wisdom and to achieve dharmakaya and rupakaya, for numberless sentient beings, for every maggot, for every tick, for every mosquito and for every single slug. So that comes from practice, and to practice, first you have to learn the Buddhadharma. So for those who can, then you learn the most extensive philosophy, sutra and tantra, lam-rim and then tantric subjects of your own deity and then the essence of what the guru has taught from the holy mouth.

So like the Kadampa Geshes teach according to the different levels of intelligence, the different capacities, so there are three ways of studying. Similarly we offer that, different levels according to different levels of intelligence and capacity, in order to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings, to be able to work perfectly without the slightest mistake for sentient beings. This is why we offer the Masters Program, the Basic Program, Discovering Buddhism, Buddhism in a Nutshell, Living in the Path and so on, this is besides Universal Education for Compassion and Wisdom. Then also we offer social services, such as hospices and many other services. Here it is not only to help the body, but mainly to help the mind. Then in all the centers since they have started, there have been lam-rim teachings continually, offering the essence of the path to enlightenment.

The whole point of FPMT is to bring sentient beings to full enlightenment, to the peerless happiness – the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations. So this is what FPMT has been trying to do, and this is the function of FPMT International Office, to help in that, and also the function of all the centers, projects and services, to be able to benefit in this way to the numberless sentient beings.

When a person has cancer, diabetes or leprosy, but then the person’s nose is crooked, so they try to fix it with plastic surgery, but that doesn’t help cure the cancer, diabetes or leprosy. Or they try to make the wrinkles on their face disappear by spending lots of money, but this doesn’t do anything for the life threatening diseases. People spend so much money and time on something really unimportant, such small things, and have no idea at all, no knowledge at all about the suffering of death, sickness and old age. They don’t know where this suffering comes from, which is karma and delusions, nothing is done for that, nothing is known about that. The root of samsara is the ignorance holding the I as truly existent, as real from its own side, while it is not, while it is totally empty from its own side, from beginningless time. Even having tantra realizations and bodhichitta realizations is not enough, but it is only with wisdom directly realizing emptiness that can directly eliminate the root of samsara – ignorance.

Similarly you don’t have a rhinoceros horn growing from your head or a white-faced monkey’s long tail growing behind you.

So the purpose of the FPMT organization’s existence, it is NOT like that.

Thank you very, very, very much, from the bottom of my heart numberless thanks, by joining my two palms together – numberless thanks and I pray for the success of all the students, all the benefactors, all the volunteers, all the staffs, everybody. Thank you to all the directors of the centers and to every student. We are all here to liberate the numberless sentient beings, our pitiful mother sentient beings, to free them from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and to bring them to peerless happiness – buddhahood: the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrapped himself in a blanket to dictate his letter for the 2015 FPMT Annual Review and playfully posed for a few photos. “It was very cold,” explained Ven. Holly, who was scribe for the letter, which was composed during Rinpoche’s stay at Tso Pema, India, in January 2016.

Learn more about FPMT International Office and find past years’ Annual Reviews at https://fpmt.org/fpmt/international-office/.

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.