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Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice
Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Adriana Ferranti and the staff of MAITRI Charitable Trust, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
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.
Children greeting Lama Zopa Rinpoche at MAITRI, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
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.
Rinpoche thanking Adriana and MAITRI staff, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
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.
Dogs at MAITRI, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
The project also cares for rescued goats. In addition, MAITRI has a veterinarian clinic to which local people can bring their animals.
Goats at MAITRI, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche doing korwa at the Mahabodhi Temple, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.
“… 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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche and one of the beautiful Namgyälma boards being used to bless sentient beings in the Pacific Ocean and all who come into contact with it.
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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Sangha and students using the Namgyälma boards to bless all who come into contact with the Pacific Ocean.
“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:
Lama Zopa Rinpoche giving an oral transmission of King of Prayers at Mahabodhi Stupa, Bodhgaya, India, February 2014. Photo by Ven. Sarah Thresher.
“… 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 giving an oral transmission of King of Prayers at Mahabodhi Stupa, Bodhgaya, India, February 2014. Photo by Ven. Sarah Thresher.
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 with the attendant of the previous Khunu Lama Rinpoche, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche circumambulating the Mahabodhi Stupa, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Sarah Thresher.
By Ven. Sarah Thresher
Lama Zopa Rinpoch making extensive prayers and dedications, Mahabodhi Stupa, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo 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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche in the market choosing the exact material to be offered to the Buddha statue inside the Mahabodhi Stupa, Bodhgaya, India, February 2014. Photo by Ven. Sarah Thresher.
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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche giving oral transmission of Sutra of Golden Light at Mahabodhi Stupa, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Sarah Thresher.
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.
Mahabodhi Stupa with Lama Zopa Rinpoche and students, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Sarah Thresher.
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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche giving oral transmission of Sutra of Golden Light at Mahabodhi Stupa, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Sarah Thresher.
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.
H. E. Tai Situ Rinpoche and Lama Zopa Rinpoche on Maitreya Project land, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
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.
Tai Situ Rinpoche and Lama Zopa Rinpoche making prayers in front of the 24-foot (7-meter) Maitreya Project statue, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Tai Situ Rinpoche and Lama Zopa Rinpoche in front of the 24-foot (7-meter) Maitreya Buddha statue, Bodhgaya, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche walking up to Vulture’s Peak, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.
“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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche making an offering to a beggar on the way up to Vulture’s Peak, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.
“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.
The children of Central School for Tibetans are offered a good quality vegetarian meal every day for lunch, through the Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche, through the Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund, is sponsoring all the midday (lunch) meals for the children of the Central School for Tibetans in Bylakuppe in South India. The cost for this is US$8,086.61 for the year.
In April 2013 Rinpoche also offered US$30,000 for the complete renovation of this school’s kitchen.
The vegetarian meals are prepared in the new kitchen, also sponsored by the Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche visited the school in January of this year for the inauguration of the kitchen. At that time Rinpoche wished to offer more support to the school and pledged to offer lunch for the children for all of 2014. The children are offered a good quality vegetarian lunch that is prepared daily in the new kitchen.
Please rejoice! This offering will allow the school to focus more of their limited resources on the educational curriculum.
You can donate any amount to the Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund:
Lama Zopa Rinpoche with nuns at Vulture’s Peak, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
During Monlam, Lama Zopa Rinpoche traveled from Bodhgaya to Rajgir and walked up to Vulture’s Peak. Rinpoche gave an oral transmission of the Vajra Cutter Sutra to Sangha and lay students who had traveled from Bodhgaya with Rinpoche.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche with monks at Vulture’s Peak, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
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 giving an oral transmission of the Vajra Cutter Sutra on Vulture’s Peak, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
“The Vajra Cutter Sutra is unbelievable. It is one of the most profitable practices because the root of all sufferings, yours and others, is the ignorance holding ‘I’ as truly existent, even though it is empty of that; and the ignorance holding the aggregates as truly existent, even though they are empty of that. The only antidote to cut that, to get rid of that and through which to achieve liberation, the total cessation of the suffering causes – delusions and karma – is the wisdom realizing emptiness. This is the subject of the Vajra Cutter Sutra, emptiness. So, each time you read it, it leaves such a positive imprint. Without taking much time, without much difficulty, it is easy to actualize wisdom. …”
– Lama Zopa Rinpoche, from “The Benefits of Reciting the Vajra Cutter Sutra”
Lama Zopa Rinpoche visiting Rajgir and offering to the beggars on the way up to Vulture’s Peak, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
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.