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Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition
The FPMT is an organization devoted to preserving and spreading Mahayana Buddhism worldwide by creating opportunities to listen, reflect, meditate, practice and actualize the unmistaken teachings of the Buddha and based on that experience spreading the Dharma to sentient beings. We provide integrated education through which people’s minds and hearts can be transformed into their highest potential for the benefit of others, inspired by an attitude of universal responsibility and service. We are committed to creating harmonious environments and helping all beings develop their full potential of infinite wisdom and compassion. Our organization is based on the Buddhist tradition of Lama Tsongkhapa of Tibet as taught to us by our founders Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche.
- Willkommen
Die Stiftung zur Erhaltung der Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) ist eine Organisation, die sich weltweit für die Erhaltung und Verbreitung des Mahayana-Buddhismus einsetzt, indem sie Möglichkeiten schafft, den makellosen Lehren des Buddha zuzuhören, über sie zur reflektieren und zu meditieren und auf der Grundlage dieser Erfahrung das Dharma unter den Lebewesen zu verbreiten.
Wir bieten integrierte Schulungswege an, durch denen der Geist und das Herz der Menschen in ihr höchstes Potential verwandelt werden zum Wohl der anderen – inspiriert durch eine Haltung der universellen Verantwortung und dem Wunsch zu dienen. Wir haben uns verpflichtet, harmonische Umgebungen zu schaffen und allen Wesen zu helfen, ihr volles Potenzial unendlicher Weisheit und grenzenlosen Mitgefühls zu verwirklichen.
Unsere Organisation basiert auf der buddhistischen Tradition von Lama Tsongkhapa von Tibet, so wie sie uns von unseren Gründern Lama Thubten Yeshe und Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche gelehrt wird.
- Bienvenidos
La Fundación para la preservación de la tradición Mahayana (FPMT) es una organización que se dedica a preservar y difundir el budismo Mahayana en todo el mundo, creando oportunidades para escuchar, reflexionar, meditar, practicar y actualizar las enseñanzas inconfundibles de Buda y en base a esa experiencia difundir el Dharma a los seres.
Proporcionamos una educación integrada a través de la cual las mentes y los corazones de las personas se pueden transformar en su mayor potencial para el beneficio de los demás, inspirados por una actitud de responsabilidad y servicio universales. Estamos comprometidos a crear ambientes armoniosos y ayudar a todos los seres a desarrollar todo su potencial de infinita sabiduría y compasión.
Nuestra organización se basa en la tradición budista de Lama Tsongkhapa del Tíbet como nos lo enseñaron nuestros fundadores Lama Thubten Yeshe y Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
A continuación puede ver una lista de los centros y sus páginas web en su lengua preferida.
- Bienvenue
L’organisation de la FPMT a pour vocation la préservation et la diffusion du bouddhisme du mahayana dans le monde entier. Elle offre l’opportunité d’écouter, de réfléchir, de méditer, de pratiquer et de réaliser les enseignements excellents du Bouddha, pour ensuite transmettre le Dharma à tous les êtres. Nous proposons une formation intégrée grâce à laquelle le cœur et l’esprit de chacun peuvent accomplir leur potentiel le plus élevé pour le bien d’autrui, inspirés par le sens du service et une responsabilité universelle. Nous nous engageons à créer un environnement harmonieux et à aider tous les êtres à épanouir leur potentiel illimité de compassion et de sagesse. Notre organisation s’appuie sur la tradition guéloukpa de Lama Tsongkhapa du Tibet, telle qu’elle a été enseignée par nos fondateurs Lama Thoubtèn Yéshé et Lama Zopa Rinpoché.
Visitez le site de notre Editions Mahayana pour les traductions, conseils et nouvelles du Bureau international en français.
Voici une liste de centres et de leurs sites dans votre langue préférée
- Benvenuto
L’FPMT è un organizzazione il cui scopo è preservare e diffondere il Buddhismo Mahayana nel mondo, creando occasioni di ascolto, riflessione, meditazione e pratica dei perfetti insegnamenti del Buddha, al fine di attualizzare e diffondere il Dharma fra tutti gli esseri senzienti.
Offriamo un’educazione integrata, che può trasformare la mente e i cuori delle persone nel loro massimo potenziale, per il beneficio di tutti gli esseri, ispirati da un’attitudine di responsabilità universale e di servizio.
Il nostro obiettivo è quello di creare contesti armoniosi e aiutare tutti gli esseri a sviluppare in modo completo le proprie potenzialità di infinita saggezza e compassione.
La nostra organizzazione si basa sulla tradizione buddhista di Lama Tsongkhapa del Tibet, così come ci è stata insegnata dai nostri fondatori Lama Thubten Yeshe e Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Di seguito potete trovare un elenco dei centri e dei loro siti nella lingua da voi prescelta.
- 欢迎 / 歡迎
简体中文
“护持大乘法脉基金会”( 英文简称:FPMT。全名:Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition) 是一个致力于护持和弘扬大乘佛法的国际佛教组织。我们提供听闻,思维,禅修,修行和实证佛陀无误教法的机会,以便让一切众生都能够享受佛法的指引和滋润。
我们全力创造和谐融洽的环境, 为人们提供解行并重的完整佛法教育,以便启发内在的环宇悲心及责任心,并开发内心所蕴藏的巨大潜能 — 无限的智慧与悲心 — 以便利益和服务一切有情。
FPMT的创办人是图腾耶喜喇嘛和喇嘛梭巴仁波切。我们所修习的是由两位上师所教导的,西藏喀巴大师的佛法传承。
繁體中文
護持大乘法脈基金會”( 英文簡稱:FPMT。全名:Found
ation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition ) 是一個致力於護持和弘揚大乘佛法的國際佛教組織。我們提供聽聞, 思維,禪修,修行和實證佛陀無誤教法的機會,以便讓一切眾生都能 夠享受佛法的指引和滋潤。 我們全力創造和諧融洽的環境,
為人們提供解行並重的完整佛法教育,以便啟發內在的環宇悲心及責 任心,並開發內心所蘊藏的巨大潛能 — 無限的智慧與悲心 – – 以便利益和服務一切有情。 FPMT的創辦人是圖騰耶喜喇嘛和喇嘛梭巴仁波切。
我們所修習的是由兩位上師所教導的,西藏喀巴大師的佛法傳承。 察看道场信息:
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The root of your life’s problems becomes non-existent when you cherish others.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche
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The Foundation Store is FPMT’s online shop and features a vast selection of Buddhist study and practice materials written or recommended by our lineage gurus. These items include homestudy programs, prayers and practices in PDF or eBook format, materials for children, and other resources to support practitioners.
Items displayed in the shop are made available for Dharma practice and educational purposes, and never for the purpose of profiting from their sale. Please read FPMT Foundation Store Policy Regarding Dharma Items for more information.
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Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice
10
One of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s vast visions for the FPMT organization is to sponsor 1,000 Nung-Nä retreats. About this retreat practice Rinpoche commented, “Nyung-Näs take such a short time, but bring strong purification. So many eons can be purified in this life; it makes it so easy to have attainments.”
Nyung-Nä practice is an intensive 2-day purification retreat that includes fasting, precepts, prostrations, prayers, mantra recitation, and offerings. Nyung-Nä is a practice based on the deity, 1,000 armed Chenrezig, the Buddha of Compassion, and is extremely powerful for healing illness, purifying negative karma, and opening the heart to compassion.
O Arya Compassionate-eyed One
Who is the treasure of compassion
I request you please listen to me.
Please guide myself mothers and fathers
In all six realms to be freed quickly
From the great ocean of samsara.
I request that the vast and profound
Peerless awakening mind may grow.
With the tear of your great compassion
Please cleanse all karmas and delusions.
Please lead with your hand of compassion
Me and migrators to fi elds of bliss.
Please, Amitabha and Chenrezig,
In all my lives be virtuous friends.
Show well the undeceptive pure path
And quickly place us in Buddha’s state.
Institut Vajra Yogini (IVY) in France is now hosting the third set of 108 Nyung-Näs, with four people trying to do the full 108, some of them being sponsored by Lama Zopa Rinpoche himself through the Bodhichitta Fund. From November through the beginning of March, an amazing 73 participants have accumulated 572 individual Nyung-Näs. This is something incredible in which to rejoice!
You can read commentary from Lama Zopa Rinpoche about this powerful practice courtesy of the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
FPMT Education Services has published a Nyung Nä practice manual with everything you need to complete this retreat. It can be purchased on the FPMT Foundation Store.
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Practicing Patience
“Practicing patience doesn’t mean that if someone asks you to immediately kill a gigantic lady, the size of Mount Meru or the size of a louse, you do everything that the person asks. It is not like that! What it means is that in your heart you feel or think that this person is the most kind, the most precious, the most dear one. This is what guru Buddha has taught – you need to practice patience with somebody, because the person who is called ‘enemy,’ the one who has anger towards you, then if you practice patience towards that person and don’t get angry back, then that person gives you the most precious thing, enlightenment, the state of omniscient mind. With that person you can bring the numberless sentient beings to enlightenment, free them from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to full enlightenment. So this becomes the reason to practice patience.”
– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from ”Patience – Need For and Benefit Of,” published on Advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche on fpmt.org
Learn more about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche and his beneficial activities by visiting Rinpoche’s homepage, where you will find links to Rinpoche’s schedule, new advice, recent video, photos and more.
8
We Don’t Want Suffering, We Want Happiness
Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave a teaching to the young children, teachers and parents of students at the Maitreya School, which is a project of Root Institute. Ven. Roger Kunsang, Rinpoche’s assistant, shared that Rinpoche said to the children that we don’t want suffering, we want happiness, so then, we should not give harm to others; this is the very, very basic education! This is the basic principle of the education in this school.
Rinpoche also said that the Maitreya School is special because it has additional education showing how suffering and happiness do not come from outside, but from inside – from one’s own mind. After the talk, Rinpoche offered rucksacks to all of the children at the Maitreya School.
Currently, the Maitreya School is looking for teachers fluent in English and Hindi for the new school year which starts very soon.
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.
- Tagged: lama zopa rinpoche, maitreya school, mandala
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Lama Zopa Rinpoche visited MAITRI Charitable Trust, an FPMT project in Bodhgaya, India that offers a wide array of health and education programs to the very poor in the area as well as care to animals.
Children from the villages surrounding Bodhgaya lined up to greet Rinpoche upon his arrival. The children attend schools overseen by MAITRI. Rinpoche came to give a talk and advice to the children.
During his visit, Rinpoche also thanked Adriana Ferranti, who founded and directs MAITRI, and the project’s skilled staff who do all the incredible good work helping poor, uneducated mothers and children, those with leprosy and tuberculosis, and animals as well as doing HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns and providing humanitarian aid to those most in need.
MAITRI began its work in 1989 helping people with leprosy and working towards its eradication. Since then, the project has expanded greatly to meet the needs of the people in the Bodhgaya-area in Bihar, one of the poorest, most depressed and most populated states in India.
At present, MAITRI has 105 stray dogs they care for, most arriving with severe injuries and sickness. The staff does their best to provide them with the medical attention they need. Usually they are able to roam the entire property of MAITRI, but on the day of Rinpoche’s visit, with so many visitors, including so many children, they were tied up.
The project also cares for rescued goats. In addition, MAITRI has a veterinarian clinic to which local people can bring their animals.
More information, photos 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.
You can learn more about MAITRI Charitable Trust online and read Mandala’s coverage of the project’s work.
5
“… On the basis of [reflecting on the lam-rim], we should generate the good heart, bodhichitta, the thought of benefiting others. This is our best refuge, especially for those of us whose lives are very busy, who don’t have much time for sitting or other traditional forms of practice. On the basis of reflecting on impermanence and death, we should make the good heart the main object of refuge in our lives. This allows all our actions to become Dharma, the cause of enlightenment and the cause of happiness for all sentient beings. Therefore, we should lead our lives with this attitude, the thought of benefiting all sentient beings.
“If you recite a Vajrasattva mantra once with bodhichitta you get the same benefit as you do from reciting 100,000 without it. If you make one light offering with bodhichitta, you get the same amount of merit as you do from making 100,000 light offerings without it. If you make charity of one dollar to a sentient being – a beggar or a homeless person – with bodhichitta, you get the same amount of merit as you do from making charity of $100,000 without it.
“It is said in the scriptures that if the sentient beings of three galaxies – the Tibetan term is tong-sum, but I’m not exactly sure how best to translate it, you should check for yourselves – all build stupas of the seven precious substances, such as gold, diamonds and so forth, and fill the whole world with these stupas, the merit of that is far less than that created by just one person offering a tiny flower to the Buddha with bodhichitta motivation. The person making this small offering with bodhichitta motivation creates far more merit than three galaxies of sentient beings covering the world with stupas made of the seven precious substances without it.
“Try to imagine this. If you build just one stupa you create unbelievable merit. It directs your life to enlightenment and is an amazing purification. So here we have three galaxies’ worth of sentient beings, each one building a stupa of the seven precious substances – not with bricks and mortar but with precious jewels – and covering the world with these. Nevertheless, the merit of one person offering a tiny flower to the Buddha with bodhichitta motivation creates far more merit than that.
“Thinking about this should inspire you to make bodhichitta your heart practice. It transforms your life like iron into gold or kaka into diamonds. Bodhichitta motivation gives your life its greatest possible meaning and makes every single action of your daily life as beneficial as it can possibly be. You should remember bodhichitta from morning to night, twenty-four hours a day. Hold it as your most precious possession, as your wish-fulfilling jewel. You should cherish your bodhichitta motivation above all else; remember it constantly and practice it at every moment. …”
– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from The Joy of Compassion, “Chapter One: Living with Compassion,” published by the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive
Learn more about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche and his beneficial activities by visiting Rinpoche’s homepage, where you will find links to Rinpoche’s schedule, new advice, recent video, photos and more.
- Tagged: bodhichitta, lama zopa rinpoche, mandala
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4
In addition to the weekly animal liberations offered by the Sangha at Kachoe Dechen Ling – Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s California residence, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has requested the Sangha to also make weekly trips to the Pacific Ocean in order to bless all the beings living in the ocean, by using large Namgyälma mantra boards. This practice benefits all sentient beings in the ocean as well as all who touch the ocean, swim in the ocean, surf, etc. The Pacific Ocean is the world’s largest ocean (69,375,000 square miles) so by blessing this ocean, the benefit spreads far and wide. As well as blessing the sentient beings in the ocean and those who interact with the ocean, extensive practice involving visualization and mantra recitation is also done in accordance with advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche. An excerpt from this beautiful practice, the abbreviated Yeshe Kadra practice:
From the introduction:
Pretas suffer heavily of hunger and thirst – not finding even a drop of water or a spoonful of food for hundreds of thousands of eons; incredible exhaustion; disappointment; heat and cold, etc. In particular, the pretas experience three types of obscurations: outer, inner, and obscurations related to food and drink. This practice of “Yeshe Karda” is a practice whereby every single preta, of all the different types of pretas, receives drink.
From the actual practice:
For all pretas, whom the Omniscient Mind sees, this ocean of water appears as nectar. All pretas see it as an ocean of milk; they drink it and are fully satisfied. It liberates them from all sufferings, defilements, and the causes of sufferings – karma and delusions, including the specific sufferings of pretas. All these are purified and they actualize the whole path to enlightenment.
The practice is dedicated to all beings, especially for the long life of our precious gurus and and with Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recommended dedication practices.
Here you can see Rinpoche doing this very practice with Sangha
About the Namgyälma mantra, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has said:
“Namgyälma is one of the five powerful deities that manifested to purify negative karma. The benefits of reciting the five powerful mantras are mind blowing. If you recite the mantras for anyone who has been born in the lower realms, it has the power to liberate them into a pure land and so forth. That’s an incredible thing. The mantra when written can be put on the head of a person or animal who has passed away. Or you can chant this mantra and then blow on water or sand, which you throw over the body to purify. These mantras are very important and powerful in the jangwa prayers.
“Before reciting the mantra one can do the seven-limb prayer. Then make a request to Namgyalma for oneself and all sentient beings to be completely purified of all negative karmas and all those who are already in the lower realms to be immediately born in the pure land, where they can attain enlightenment, or to receive perfect human rebirth, meet the pure Mahayana teachings and be guided by perfectly qualified Mahayana gurus. Also, all the different negative karmas of sentient beings causing war, earthquakes, famine, disease, etc. to be purified, to not happen again in the future.
“Generate strong compassion. Recite the long mantra several times and then the short mantra. As you recite the mantra, visualize nectar beams are emitted, purifying the negative karmas of every sentient being since beginningless rebirth. They all receive the blessings of Namgyälma.”
Extracted from advice given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche following the tsunami tragedy, Kachoe Dechen Ling, December 28th 200.
Long Namgyälma Mantra
Further Reading/Resources
- Mandala Publications, “Lama Zopa Rinpoche Blesses All Sentient Beings in the Ocean “
- Practices of Namgyälma hardcopy collection of practices
- Namgyälma Mantra Card
- Namgyälma Mantra Decal Stickers
- Namgyälma Protection Amulet
You are welcome to contribute any amount to this weekly practice:
- Tagged: animal liberation fund, animals, namgyalma mantra
4
Extraordinary Aspirations
“… May my pure activities be endless,
My good qualities boundless,
And through abiding in immeasurable activity,
May I actualize infinite emanations.
“Limitless is the end of space,
Likewise, limitless are living beings,
Thus, limitless are karma and afflictions.
May my aspiration’s reach be limitless as well. …”
– From “King of Prayers,” published by 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.
- Tagged: king of prayers, mandala
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Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Khunu Lama Rinpoche’s Attendant
While in Bodhgaya, Lama Zopa Rinpoche met with the attendant of the previous Khunu Lama Rinpoche. Known as the Ladkhi Gen-la, he has been teaching in Mumbai for the past 20 years.
Khunu Rinpoche, who passed away in 1977, was as a great teacher and scholar, called by His Holiness the Dalai Lama “the Shantideva of our time.” He authored Vast as the Heavens, Deep as the Sea: Verses in Praise of Bodhicitta, published by Wisdom Publications.
More information, photos 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.
- Tagged: khunu lama rinpoche, lama zopa rinpoche, mandala
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By Ven. Sarah Thresher
While Lama Zopa Rinpoche has been staying at Root Institute in Bodhgaya, India, he has been engaged in many practices during Losar and the two weeks that follow. Ven. Sarah Thresher has been participating in these virtuous activities and shared this report.
Rinpoche has gone nearly every day of the 15 miracle days to the stupa to do korwa [circumambulation], bless the light offerings and give the transmission of the Sutra of Golden Light.
On the Tibetan 15th, Chotrul Duchen, Rinpoche went to the stupa in the late morning after giving the Eight Mahayana Precepts at Root Institute. He did some circumambulation while reciting Lama Tsongkhapa’s Lekshay Nyingpo and then offered robes and bowls full of fruit and other offerings to the Buddha statue in the main shrine with extensive prayers and dedications for all the students and benefactors in the organization, for world peace, for all the centers and projects and for all sentient beings.
It’s very important to Rinpoche not to waste a moment of opportunity to purify and accumulate merit with this precious human life and to always motivate with bodhichitta and dedicate in the most extensive way for all sentient beings while remembering emptiness.
Read more from Ven. Sarah Thresher on Rinpoche’s activities during Monlam.
Every month the Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund sponsors the offering of robes to the Buddha inside the Mahabodhi Stupa. Visit the fund’s website to learn more.
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.
- Tagged: bodhgaya, lama zopa rinpoche, mahabodhi stupa, mandala
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By Ven. Sarah Thresher
While Lama Zopa Rinpoche has been staying at Root Institute in Bodhgaya, India, he has been engaged in many practices during Losar and the two weeks that follow. Ven. Sarah Thresher has been participating in these virtuous activities and shared this report.
Rinpoche has been giving the oral transmission of the Sutra of Golden Light during the two weeks following Losar at the Mahabodhi Stupa in Bodhgaya.
The setting is stunning with a backdrop of the golden floodlit stupa and 100,000 multicolored light offerings around us.
Before the transmission Rinpoche does korwa [circumambulation] and blesses and offers the light offerings, which are part of Root Institute’s Festival of Lights and Merit. Rinpoche has commented many times how beautiful they are and also that people who are sponsoring them have so much in which to rejoice.
Then there is a motivation for the transmission, and we begin the journey through the marvelous world of the Sutra of Golden Light, with Rinpoche pausing now and then to translate some of the mind-blowing benefits of the sutra spoken by the buddhas, bodhisattvas, goddesses, deities, guardians, etc.
On one evening, Rinpoche quoted from Chapter 10 where the Goddess Drdha explains how simply listening to the Sutra of Golden Light delights hundreds of thousands of millions of buddhas, frees beings from the lower realms and causes beings to be born in the higher realms for hundreds of thousands of rebirths. The benefits come from hearing even one chapter, one four-line verse, one word or the name of the sutra.
Rinpoche told the story that he took a bite of food in Malaysia and felt a toothache, so he just remembered the Sutra of Golden Light and the pain disappeared.
“Whatever problem you have,” Rinpoche said, “just by thinking of the Sutra of Golden Light, your problem has gone. When you are experiencing black magic, spirit harm, sicknesses that doctors cannot cure and other problems, one very good solution is to recite the Sutra of Golden Light.” And this can also help in countries where there is a lot of fighting and problems.
Read more from Ven. Sarah Thresher on Rinpoche’s activities during Monlam.
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.
31
His Eminence the Twelfth Tai Situ Rinpoche visited the Maitreya Project land in Bodhgaya with Lama Zopa Rinpoche to make prayers for the success of the project.
The Tai Situ is one of the oldest lineages in the Kagyü school and is considered to be an emanation of the bodhisattva Maitreya.
The Maitreya Project in Bodhgaya has been making progress. Currently, the project plans to build a large statue of Maitreya in his bodhisattva aspect (with legs crossed). The Maitreya Buddha Kushinagar Project is building a second very large Maitreya statue in the seated aspect.
For more, see Rinpoche’s letter on the Maitreya Projects and Mandala‘s coverage.
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.
- Tagged: bodhgaya, lama zopa rinpoche, maitreya project bodhgaya, maitreya projects, mandala, tai situ rinpoche
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28
“If you are performing the daily actions of your life with two attitudes, you are getting close to enlightenment. The two attitudes are: 1) having a sincere heart, doing social service with compassion (working for others); and, 2) meditating on the lam-rim (the gradual path to enlightenment). This may not mean actually meditating, but living your life with lam-rim, in order to purify and collect merit, and then on top of that practicing tantra, in order to achieve enlightenment quickly, or at least to prepare the mind, by leaving positive imprints every day. Social service means doing something for others, doing it from your heart. Even if it is only a little help that you give, you still get real satisfaction, like you have done something meaningful in your life. You have done something positive. Then, every day, every moment, every second, you are getting closer to enlightenment.
“Otherwise, if you just live your life only thinking about your own pleasure, trying to achieve it for yourself, with attachment, then the main aim of your life is you. You are looking for pleasure for yourself, sexual pleasure and so forth, with attachment, and from this comes only pain. Everything just becomes painful.
“There is the pain of separation, where you can’t stand to be away from the person you are attached to. Then, each day, your feelings becomes stronger, until the attachment becomes unbearable. Then there comes the pain of jealousy toward others. You don’t want others to have a connection. You have so many worries and fears, and it becomes so much suffering.
“If your life does not have these two things in them (social service or lam-rim) then no matter how much you meditate, if it is not done with lam-rim, or by doing social service, doing work for others, then instead you are only doing it for yourself, and your whole life gets tied up with attachment, to sex and other things. Then there is nothing positive in your life, now or in the future. Your life will become dark, because your whole life is lived with the self-cherishing thought, with desire, attachment and clinging to this life, and all of these are non-virtues. So when you die, you don’t have any positive thoughts, and you are not able to renounce life. …”
– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from “Dealing with Attachment” on “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.
- Tagged: attachment, lama zopa rinpoche, mandala
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*powered by Google TranslateTranslation of pages on fpmt.org is performed by Google Translate, a third party service which FPMT has no control over. The service provides automated computer translations that are only an approximation of the websites' original content. The translations should not be considered exact and only used as a rough guide.The sun of real happiness shines in your life when you start to cherish others.