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Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice
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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Riverside, Washington, US, April 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
“There is no question what to do to make your life meaningful. The most important thing is to practice Dharma, because everyone wants happiness and does not want suffering, even the tiniest insect does not want to suffer. In order to stop all the suffering (which is not wanted) and to cause all happiness (which is wanted) depends on abandoning the cause of suffering and practicing the cause of happiness. Therefore, there is nothing else – only Dharma.
“Therefore, you need to learn Dharma and practice Dharma. …”
– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from the page “A Meaningful Life” 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 upon arriving in Sarnath, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
A new post on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive features Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice on purifying past karma. Rinpoche responds to a letter from a student diagnosed with breast cancer at length. Here’s an excerpt:
“… Even this life’s problems come from the wrong concept and wrong action. This life’s happiness also comes from the right concept, the correct way of thinking, and correct actions, pure actions. From that, inner happiness comes. So even this hour’s happiness, right now, if we think in a positive way, then we have happiness, but if we think in a negative way, then we have suffering. Even the person who got angry towards us in the past, who gave us harm in the past, who we regard as an enemy, maybe first we cherished that person and now we have renounced him. Maybe in the beginning we were attached and now totally the opposite.
“In the beginning we thought that person was the same as a holy being, a bodhisattva or buddha, or even just a good human being, then when he gets angry with us, provokes us, harms us, or even tries to kill us, we see him as an enemy. Actually we should see him as the most kind person; this person who is our enemy is our teacher of patience, for us to learn patience. Maybe we do meditation on patience, but here, this person is our practical teacher. We can do the action meditation of patience with him, so we have the opportunity to use him and to see him as most kind – kinder than someone who gives us a hundred thousand dollars. Just giving us a hundred thousand dollars, that alone doesn’t help us to be free, to have a happy death or to stop us being reincarnated in the hell realms or as a hungry ghost or animal.
“If we practice patience towards the person who is angry at us, who harms us, by thinking how extremely kind he is, then we don’t get reborn in the lower realms as a hell being, hungry ghost or animal. Also the enemy actually gives us the opportunity to create the cause for good rebirth and for our next life to be born as a deva or higher. Then also that person becomes the cause to cease all of our sufferings and to achieve ultimate happiness, full enlightenment, peerless happiness for sentient beings and to be able to free the numberless sentient beings from each realm from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to omniscience, ultimate happiness and full enlightenment. …”
Read the entire letter “Purifying Past Karma” online from the Archive’s “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book.”
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 at Jinsui Farlin Center, Taipei, Taiwan, April 2014. Rinpoche was there to open the center after its very extensive renovation. Jinsui Farlin opened 23 years ago and was the first FPMT center in Taiwan. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
“We so strongly, concretely believe what we see exists from its own side! And then if we can’t see it, it doesn’t exist!”
– From Ven. Roger Kunsang’s Twitter page, posted on April 4, 2014
Ven. Roger Kunsang, Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s assistant and CEO of FPMT Inc., shares Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent pith sayings on Ven. Roger’s Twitter page. (You can also read them on Ven. Roger’s Facebook page.)
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 replied to a student who had concerns about health and having given back their ordinations vows, which led to them feeling very isolated and depressed and being unable to study or practice:
“If you can study lam-rim, that should be the main teaching – just like the wandering ascetics, the monks whose only belonging is the Lamrim Chenmo. They don’t have anything else, don’t carry anything but the lam-rim, so like that. So that is the main one to study, to meditate on – the lam-rim. You have to actualize this, otherwise we will suffer. Without realizations on guru devotion, renunciation, bodhichitta, right view and particularly tantra, you will be suffering in samsara endlessly. Do you want to do that? I don’t think so.
You should know it’s not just practice for this lifetime. The practice becomes preparation for all your lives, so eons, eons, eons, all your future lives, to go to a pure land, then enlightenment, to be free from samsara, enlightenment and then to benefit all sentient beings and enlighten them. Don’t think you are alone.” …
Read the full advice
Lama Zopa Rinpoche on the way to opening of renovated Jinsiu Farlin, Taipei, Taiwan, April 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
“Live the life for others. We work so hard for the (inherently existing) ‘I’ that when you search, can’t find! Strange isn’t it?”
– From Ven. Roger Kunsang’s Twitter page, posted on March 29, 2014
Ven. Roger Kunsang, Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s assistant and CEO of FPMT Inc., shares Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent pith sayings on Ven. Roger’s Twitter page. (You can also read them on Ven. Roger’s Facebook page.)
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.
IVY Nyung-Na participants with the beautiful altar set up for this special practice.
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.
1,000 Armed Chenrezig by Peter Iseli
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.
—- From the Concluding Ceremony, Nyung-Na Practice Manual
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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Taiwan, April 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
“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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche giving a talk to the students of Maitreya School at Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
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.
Maitreya School students praying before Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s talk, Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche offering a rucksack to a young Maitreya School student, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
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.