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Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Kopan Monastery, April 7, 2023.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered teachings and advice to a group of Vajrasattva retreaters at Kopan Monastery on April 7, 8, and 9, 2023. In his first teaching from this series, Rinpoche overviewed some of the many benefits of purification practice. This was one of the last teaching events Rinpoche offered before showing the aspect of passing away on April 13, 2023.
Addressing the retreatants Rinpoche said:
“There are so many problems in the world—what should we do? Doing Vajrasattva practice is the answer; doing purification is the answer. You are purifying negative karma, from where all the sufferings came. Purification is the answer to war, famine, disease, and the dangers from fire, water, earth, and air. That is the answer. So, you’re doing the right thing; you’re doing the most important thing. I want to say that. So many people ask, “What can I do?” You didn’t make any mistake. This time you made the best decision. I want to say that.”
We are our own guide, and our own enemy, Rinpoche explained:
“When your mind becomes pure, when your mind becomes holy Dharma, at that time you become the guide to yourself. Whenever your mind becomes non-Dharma, non-virtue, you then become the enemy to yourself. When your mind is in anger, you are the enemy to yourself; you destroy yourself. When you’re ignorance, when you’re attachment, clinging to this life, you are the enemy to yourself; you destroy yourself. When your mind becomes self-cherishing thought, you then destroy your enlightenment. It not only hinders you to achieve happiness for yourself, but it hinders you to benefit others, the numberless sentient beings. So, when your mind becomes self-cherishing thought, you become the enemy to yourself.
“When you are without ignorance, anger, and attachment, your mind then becomes Dharma, When your mind becomes bodhichitta, the good heart wishing to help others, to benefit others, at that time you become the guide to yourself.
“When you see the reality that samsara and samsaric happiness is suffering, you then have renunciation. With that renounced mind, with that satisfaction and contentment, you then become the guide to yourself.
“When your mind becomes attachment, seeking samsaric perfections, you then become the enemy to yourself.
“When your mind becomes bodhicitta, you then create the cause to achieve enlightenment and to enlighten all sentient beings. At that time you become the best guide to yourself.”
Without doing Vajrasattva practice, negative karma multiplies day by day, Rinpoche warned:
“Without reciting the hundred-syllable Vajrasattva mantra at all, any negative karma you have done with your body, speech, or mind multiplies day by day. On the second day it becomes double, on the third day it multiples by four times. It increases and increases in this way. If you don’t recite the Vajrasattva mantra at all, that one negative karma you collected with your body, speech, or mind, by increasing day by day, becoming like a mountain when you die. …
“By multiplying, one atom increases to become like a mountain; like that, one negative karma becomes like a mountain when you die. Then, in one day, you create so many negative karmas with your body, speech, and mind, and each one becomes like a mountain. Can you imagine? Then, for eons and eons, you wander in the lower realms and suffer for all that. It’s almost like it’s not possible for you to be born as a human being or in the deva realm, and no way for you to meet Dharma. Therefore, you understand how important doing Vajrasattva practice and other purification practices is. If you do 100,000 Vajrasattva mantras, even if you broke a pratimoksha vow or tantric root vow, it totally purifies it.”
Pleasing the guru is the best purification, and the best way to collect merit, Rinpoche advised:
“The best way to collect the greatest merit and to perform the greatest purification is by pleasing the guru. Not just any guru in the world—the guru from whom you have received teachings and whom you regard as your guru. To please that guru, by fulfilling their wishes and following their advice, is the most important thing for you to achieve enlightenment in the quickest away. That is the essence.
“Vajrasattva practice is so important. I want to thank very, very much everyone who is sacrificing your precious time, your precious human life, but especially the Vajrasattva people. You are doing it not only for your happiness, but for the happiness of all sentient beings.”
Rinpoche began offering the oral transmission of The Essential Nectar at 1:17:00 in this video.
We invite you to go deeper into the topics presented here, plus many others, by watching Rinpoche’s video below and reading the full transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.
- Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.
- Find links to resources to support your Vajrasattva practice in the Foundation Store.
Teachings offered by Lama Zopa Rinpoche to the 2022 Vajrasattva retreatants at Kopan Monastery:
Read a letter from Lama Zopa Rinpoche to a student who offered 100,000 Vajrasattva mantras to Rinpoche:
Lama Zopa Rinpoche was 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.
For more video teachings of Lama Zopa Rinpoche please visit:
fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche