Lama Zopa Rinpoche circumambulating the 1,000 buddhas at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, June 2020. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

The Six Perfections: The Practice of the Bodhisattvas is a recent book from Lama Zopa Rinpoche. In it, Rinpoche walks us through this key Mahayana Buddhist teaching. Here’s an excerpt from Rinpoche’s teaching on the perfection of wisdom:

We have this ignorance, this wrong concept, believing in the real I and the real aggregates, which are, in fact, totally empty, which have never existed in the past, from beginningless rebirths. This false concept brings so many problems, causing us to be forever worried about when this I can be happy—this real I that our ignorance believes in and that has never existed. When can it be happy?

All our life we worry about this, through kindergarten, primary school, high school, and college. We go to university and get a degree so this real I can be happy. We get a job and earn a good salary so this real I can be happy. We marry and have children just for this real I. We feel once we have achieved all these goals, then this real I will be so happy!

Our whole life is spent afraid of something happening to this I, to this real I. We totally—100 percent—believe in its reality, and we do everything possible to protect this real I, which is not there. We are filled with apprehension about what will harm us: “This will make me sick. This will kill me. This will hurt me.” We take every possible precaution to prevent this real I that doesn’t exist from being hurt.

Determined to keep fit, we do hours of exercise every day, by jogging or working out on machines. There is a big industry making new types of machines for our supposedly real I to keep fit on. As soon as a machine has been on the market a few months, a new one comes out and our I has to have it. Each machine makes us do it differently—from lying upside down to putting our head between our legs—and we are forced to buy new ones because the experts in advertisements convince us this new one is better. We have injections to prevent diseases before they happen and take all sorts of vitamins every day. This is all done to protect this I that appears real and that we believe in 100 percent.

Because we believe in this supposedly real I, we get angry when somebody cheats us, lies to us, steals from us, blames us, and so forth. We get angry for this real I. We sue that person, bringing a court case against them, spending thousands—even millions!—of dollars all for this real I to harm and defeat its enemy and so be happy. For the real I to be happy we want to put that person into prison. Every day people hurt and even kill others for this real I that does not exist at all, creating all this negative karma for something that is a total hallucination.

Just as a dictator, cheated by this wrong concept of a real I, can start wars and kill millions of people, we are cheated in the same way. Therefore it is vital that we end this tyranny of the real I now. From beginningless rebirths we have been experiencing the sufferings of the hell beings, the hungry ghosts, the animals, the human beings, the gods, the demigods, and the intermediate-state beings. As human beings we have the suffering of rebirth, old age, sickness, and death; the suffering of meeting undesirable objects and not meeting desirable objects. Even if we manage to get what we want, we are still unable to find satisfaction, which is the greatest problem of affluent humans and gods. No matter how many desirable objects we manage to acquire, we can never find satisfaction, but we try and try and try.

This is not the first time we have been like this, with all these sufferings. This has been our experience for countless lifetimes. If we fail to do something now, while we have the opportunity to realize emptiness, we will suffer endlessly in samsara.

Cover of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s book The Six Perfections

All phenomena are empty; they do not exist from their own side, especially I, the body, the aggregates, and the possessions—the objects of our attachment and anger. To remind ourselves of the vital subjects of impermanence, emptiness, and dependent arising, it is very worthwhile to constantly reflect on the meaning of the verse from the Vajra Cutter Sutra, seeing everything as like a star, a mirage, or an illusion.

If we can meditate on this every day, even though we might be far from attaining realizations, having a degree of familiarity will help very much, creating so much peace and happiness in our life. Then we will be able to practice the Dharma more and more, and gain more and more freedom for ourselves until we are able to attain a blissful state of peace, liberation from samsara, and then enlightenment.

Learn more about The Six Perfections: The Practice of the Bodhisattvas, including order information, on Wisdom Publication’s website:
https://wisdomexperience.org/product/the-six-perfections/

Watch the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 and find links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/announcements/resources-for-coronavirus-pandemic/advice-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche-for-coronavirus/

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.