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Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice
Lama Zopa Rinpoche on the first day of teaching at Choe Khor Sum Ling Study Group, Bangalore, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
FPMT Spiritual Director Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered a week of teachings at Choe Khor Sum Ling Study Group in Bangalore, India, in March 2014. Ven. Roger Kunsang, Rinpoche’s assistant and CEO of FPMT, Rinpoche shared that Rinpoche gave animated and dynamic teachings on emptiness that were “so clear on the subtle aspects.” Rinpoche also enthusiastically taught on Dharma practice, the meaning of refuge and the importance of Dharma.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Choe Khor Sum Ling Study Group, Bangalore, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
According to Ven. Roger, Rinpoche said: “Dharma protects you from suffering. Happiness and suffering come from the mind … so protect your mind … keep your mind content … cultivate happiness from within!”
Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Choe Khor Sum Ling Study Group, Bangalore, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Ven. Roger also shared that Rinpoche said: “Milarepa had nothing and yet was always blissful! Many people have everything materially and are still unhappy. … True lasting happiness comes from within. … Satisfaction and contentment are mental states. … These inner qualities don’t depend on outside things.”
Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an organization dedicated to preserving Mahayana Buddhism through offering the Buddha’s authentic teachings and to facilitating reflection, meditation, practice and the opportunity to actualize and directly experience the Buddha’s teachings. Sign up to receive news and updates.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche discussing with Ven. Lobsang Norbu Shastra, a Sanskrit scholar at Sarnath University, the meaning and pronunciation of certain mantras, Sarnath, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s devotion manifests in a natural curiosity to learn mantras in the original Sanskrit when possible and appropriate. Rinpoche later uses what he learns to bless people and animals that he comes across, such when once Rinpoche met a small bird in a garden store:
Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an organization dedicated to preserving Mahayana Buddhism through offering the Buddha’s authentic teachings and to facilitating reflection, meditation, practice and the opportunity to actualize and directly experience the Buddha’s teachings. Sign up to receive news and updates.
In this touching video, Lama Zopa Rinpoche meets the children of the Ngari Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Ladakh, India. Rinpoche is listening to the children reciting many prayers that they have memorized. Lama Zopa Rinpoche, through the Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund, is sponsoring all the food for the children this year. This is the second year that Rinpoche has offered this.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Yangsi Rinpoche (left) and Ven. Sangpo visiting Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden in Portland, Oregon, US, April 2014. Photo by Ven. Holly Ansett.
“Great compassion is generated by depending on the kindness of this person who is suffering and deluded – this person who we call the enemy.
“… This person who we call “enemy” is the most important thing in our life and we should do anything that we can to help this person. If the person is carrying a heavy load, then we can share the load. We can help to carry some of the load so the person doesn’t suffer, or we can carry the whole load or make it lighter. Even something small, like offering our seat to this person in the car, becomes so important.
“Even a small amount of help or some small benefit is most important for us and it gives us great joy. If we can offer some small comfort to that person, it gives us incredible joy, because that person is the dearest and the most precious and kind in our life. So every single action that we can do to help, or any comfort that we can offer, is so precious.”
– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from Service as a Path to Enlightenment, from FPMT Education Services
Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an organization dedicated to preserving Mahayana Buddhism through offering the Buddha’s authentic teachings and to facilitating reflection, meditation, practice and the opportunity to actualize and directly experience the Buddha’s teachings. Sign up to receive news and updates.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche in Portland, Oregon, US, April 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
In case you missed the live webcast, you can watch the recorded video from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s preliminary teachings while he was at Maitripa College in Portland, Oregon, April 19-22. While at Maitripa, Rinpoche gave a Vajrasattva initiation, an oral transmission of Dorje Khadro and a White Tara long life empowerment.
During Rinpoche’s visit to Portland, he also met with the board and staff of FPMT International Office, which shares a building with Maitripa College. Rinpoche gave advice on current and future projects and activities for the worldwide organization.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche offering advice to International Office staff, FPMT International Office, Portland, Oregon, April 2014. Photo by Ven. Holly Ansett.
More information, photos, schedule and updates about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be found on Rinpoche’s homepage. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche via email, sign up to Lama Zopa Rinpoche News.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Riverside, Washington, US, April 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
“Usually we have attachment to so many different things, or to having many of a similar object, e.g. a wife, husband, girlfriend or boyfriend, sexual relationships, etc. — wanting many or not being content with one. Or wanting more money; when we have one thousand dollars, wanting ten thousand dollars, then a million, then a billion, it is endless. Then, to get more, one engages in the ten non-virtues, cheats or even kills others. Then one gets into trouble and receives punishment, is sent to prison, and becomes famous for having a negative mind, a bad reputation.
“Contentment means not needing more than you have or wanting what you don’t have. You can understand it better if you think of renunciation. It is similar, bringing peace in the heart by healing the mental sickness of attachment.”
– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from Service as a Path to Enlightenment, from FPMT Education Services
Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an organization dedicated to preserving Mahayana Buddhism through offering the Buddha’s authentic teachings and to facilitating reflection, meditation, practice and the opportunity to actualize and directly experience the Buddha’s teachings. Sign up to receive news and updates.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche making an offering to a beggar on the way up to Vulture’s Peak, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.
The sheer volume of compassionate activity undertaken by Lama Zopa Rinpoche every year, day in and day out, is astounding. The Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund was established to enable Rinpoche’s kindness and generosity to flourish around the world.
You can now have all news from this fund delivered to your email inbox. Subscribe here and never miss a thing!
Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Maitripa College, Portland, Oregon, US, April 19, 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche offers a White Tara Long Life Empowerment on Tuesday, April 22, at Maitripa College in Portland, Oregon, US. You can watch a live video webcast of the preliminary teachings on FPMT’s Livestream page. The webcast is scheduled to beginning at 10 a.m. PDT.
The empowerment coincides with the birthday of Maitripa president Yangsi Rinpoche and caps off a weekend of many precious blessings with Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
More information, photos, schedule and updates about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be found on Rinpoche’s homepage. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche via email, sign up to Lama Zopa Rinpoche News.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Maitripa College, Oregon, US, June 2012. Photo by Marc Sakamoto.
On Monday, April 21, at 7 p.m. PDT Lama Zopa Rinpoche will offer an oral transmission of the preliminary practice of Dorje Khadro at Maitripa College.
UPDATE: All public portions of the oral transmission will be webcast live on FPMT’s Livestream — this is a new link than was previously published. A recording of this teaching will be available at this link following the teachings.
In early May, Rinpoche will be teaching at the Light of the Path Retreat in North Carolina, US. The teachings during the retreat will be streamed live as well as made available after the event on demand.
More information, photos, schedule and updates about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be found on Rinpoche’s homepage. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche via email, sign up to Lama Zopa Rinpoche News.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Maitripa College, Oregon, US, June 2012. Photo by Marc Sakamoto.
On Saturday, April 19 at 7 p.m. PDT, Lama Zopa Rinpoche will offer a Vajrasattva initiation at Maitripa College in Portland, Oregon, United States. Then on Monday, April 21 at 7 p.m., Rinpoche will offer the oral transmission of the preliminary practice of Dorje Khadro. All public portions of the Vajrasattva initiation and oral transmission will be webcast live courtesy of Maitripa College.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche arrived in the United States in early April, staying at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land in rural northcentral Washington State before coming south to Portland for the teachings at Maitripa.
In early May, Rinpoche will be teaching at the Light of the Path Retreat in North Carolina, US. The teachings during the retreat will be streamed live as well as made available after the event on demand.
More information, photos, schedule and updates about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be found on Rinpoche’s homepage. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche via email, sign up to Lama Zopa Rinpoche News.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche shopping for flowers for offerings, Washington, US, April 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
“… Tong-len practice is extremely good and we collect limitless skies of merit. When we give our merit from the past, present and future, as well as our body and material things, this results in happiness from now up to enlightenment, including all happiness in this life and future lives, and liberation from samsara. There is so much to give and when we give to each sentient being, we collect limitless skies of merit so many times. Tong-len is giving our happiness to other sentient beings and experiencing all their suffering. With this incredible practice, we can achieve enlightenment quicker. When we take on the suffering of others, we collect incredible, limitless skies of merit. This is the very heart of the Mahayana teachings; the brave heart developing bodhichitta. Strong compassion serving others is the quick way to achieve enlightenment. …”
– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from the page “The Path to Enlightenment”
in “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book”
Learn more about Lama Zopa Rinpoche, spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), and Rinpoche’s vision for a better world. Sign up to receive news and updates.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche making prayers at the great stupa in Sarnath, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche visited Sarnath, India, in March 2014. Sarnath is the location where Buddha Shakyamuni first taught Dharma and is one of the four major Buddhist pilgrimage sites.
While at the deer park at Sarnath, Rinpoche made prayers at Dhamek Stupa.
In 2013, Rinpoche translated “Padmasambhava’s Instruction on Offerings to Stupas,” which details the benefits of prostrating to, circumambulating, making offerings, and offering service to stupas. The text, which Rinpoche would like to be used far and wide, is available from FPMT Education Services as a free booklet in several downloadable formats in English as well as in Italian.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an organization dedicated to preserving Mahayana Buddhism through offering the Buddha’s authentic teachings and to facilitating reflection, meditation, practice and the opportunity to actualize and directly experience the Buddha’s teachings. Sign up to receive news and updates.