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Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice
Lama Zopa Rinpoche during the thought transformation teaching, “Having Taken Refuge, What to Abandon and What to Practice,” Kopan Monastery, June 11, 2022.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of Rinpoche’s June 11, 2022 teaching which he offered via Zoom to students in China and Malaysia:
Numberless buddhas of the past, present, and future can see our suffering and that we need happiness, Rinpoche explains. They want to help, they want to guide us. However, from our side, if we don’t rely on them by going for refuge, all of their power together cannot guard us, cannot save us, cannot keep us from the lower realms. Therefore, take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha so we don’t cheat ourselves. The reason why we have been suffering in samsara from beginningless rebirths is because we haven’t followed the Guru, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.
Every happiness and suffering we experience came from the mind, from karma. Therefore, examine one’s body, speech and mind and attempt to abandon negative karma and practice virtue, Rinpoche urges us. We should engage in ethical, healthy, virtuous, positive, and beneficial things which bring happiness to ourselves and to all sentient beings. Just as one protects themselves by following their parents’ good advice, we must protect ourselves by following the Dharma.
The purpose of this life is to not only abstain from harming others, but to cause them happiness. Everyone—from small insects to human beings—wants happiness and not suffering. Benefiting others makes life important.
Rinpoche explains that there is an absolute buddha and a conventional buddha. The absolute buddha is the holy body of the dharmakaya, the omniscient mind, and the ultimate nature of the omniscient mind. The conventional buddha is the buddha which is a truth for the all-obscuring mind—that is the nirmanakaya aspect.
There is an absolute Dharma and a conventional Dharma. The wisdom directly perceiving emptiness is the absolute Dharma. The subjects, the texts, the lamrim—that is the conventional Dharma.
There is the absolute sangha and the conventional sangha. The absolute sangha is the sangha who has a realization directly perceiving emptiness. The conventional sangha has to be four members; even if they don’t have the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, but are living in 253 pure vows purely—that is the conventional sangha.
Rinpoche discusses what to abandon and what to practice after having taken refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha at (38:32) in the video and starting on page 10 in the transcript. We recommend listening to this part of the teaching and following along in the transcript, as Rinpoche goes into detail on these points.
Rinpoche also discusses that merit is multiplied 100 million times on special Buddha multiplying days and what to do and how to think when burning holy Dharma to avoid creating negative karma.
We invite you to go deeper into the topics presented here, plus many others, by watching Rinpoche’s video and reading the full transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “Having Taken Refuge What to Abandon and What to Practice “:
- Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
- Rinpoche is offering commentary on passages that can be found in the practice booklet, Refuge in the Three Jewels
- Find Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation translated into various languages.
- Dedication verses
Summary of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching by Carina Rumrill based on the transcript by Ven. Joan Nicell with editorial input and additions by Francois Lecointre. This summary is meant to highlight key topics presented by Rinpoche in the recorded video and is not intended to serve as a full representation of Rinpoche’s teaching, which is best received through watching the video and/or reading the full transcript.
Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation and find links to videos in 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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche joined the ABC community in Singapore for a special birthday celebration and puja for His Holiness the Dalai Lama, following Rinpoche’s discharge from the hospital for a simple medical procedure, July 6, 2022.
On Friday we shared the news that Lama Zopa Rinpoche was in Singapore for a simple medical procedure, and Khandro Kunga Bhuma (Khandro-la) advised on particular practices for students to engage in at this time and for a period following the procedure.
We are delighted to share Ven. Roger Kunsang’s most recent update from today:
This morning Rinpoche was discharged from the hospital here in Singapore. The doctor was very pleased with the results of the procedure.
Rinpoche says he is feeling very well and a little bit lighter!
Sincerely,
roger
Following his discharge from the hospital Rinpoche joined the Amitabha Buddhist Centre (ABC) community in Singapore for their special celebration of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s 87th birthday with puja. Prior to the puja, Rinpoche talked with the group and offered a short teaching. Rinpoche shared, “So thank you very much. Due to all your prayers I’m feeling better. The operation was like a short sleep. I fell asleep, then finished! It was very efficient.”
All are welcome to watch this event which was livestreamed:
We encourage all students to please continue with the recommended prayers and practices advised by Khandro-la until July 15:
- Animal Liberations
Liberating Animals from the Danger of Death
Available from the FPMT Foundation Store: shop.fpmt.org/Liberating-Animals-from-the-Danger-of-Death-PDF_p_1115.html
- Tara Mantra and Tara Praises
Tara Praise and Mantras
Available from the FPMT Foundation Store: shop.fpmt.org/Tara-Praise-and-Mantras-PDF-_p_3582.html
Abbreviated Praise to the Twenty-one Taras
Available from the FPMT Foundation Store: shop.fpmt.org/Abbreviated-Praise-to-the-Twenty-One-Taras-PDF_p_3466.html
- Vajrasattva Mantra to be recited as much as possible
A Short Vajrasattva Meditation Purification with the Four Opponent Powers
Available from the FPMT Foundation Store: shop.fpmt.org/A-Short-Vajrasattva-Meditation-Purification-with-the-Four-Opponent-Powers-eBook-PDF_p_1223.html
- Padmasambhava Prayers
Recitations of The Prayer to Guru Rinpoche that Spontaneously Fulfills All Wishes (Sampa Lhundrupma)
Available for download: https://fpmt.app.box.com/s/d09kz5j5gzk1z0eggx8dr5hfaqt565lz
Recitations of The Supplication to Guru Rinpoche Clearing the Obstacles on the Path (Barchey Lamsel)
Available for download: https://fpmt.app.box.com/s/rmlbbci39tsyihe2lt00gf50iwuv8kxw
Students can also recite the long life prayer that Khandro Kunga Bhuma composed for Lama Zopa Rinpoche in 2016.
A complete list of the long life prayers for Lama Zopa Rinpoche is available to all.
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.
Visit our Long Life Puja Fund page to learn more about the purpose of long life pujas and opportunities to offer support for them.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery, May 2022. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Every year Ven. Roger Kunsang, on behalf of the FPMT organization, consults Khandro Kunga Bhuma to determine what practices should be done to help create the conditions for Lama Zopa Rinpoche to have a long life and good health for the coming year. Khandro-la also offers advice as necessary for Rinpoche’s health. Rinpoche is now in Singapore for a simple medical procedure and Ven. Roger has just shared some new advice from Khandro-la which all FPMT centers, projects, services, and students are being asked to engage in as soon as possible and to continue over the next two weeks for Rinpoche’s health:
Current Advice for Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Health
- Animal Liberations
Liberating Animals from the Danger of Death
Available from the FPMT Foundation Store: shop.fpmt.org/Liberating-Animals-from-the-Danger-of-Death-PDF_p_1115.html
- Tara Mantra and Tara Praises
Tara Praise and Mantras
Available from the FPMT Foundation Store: shop.fpmt.org/Tara-Praise-and-Mantras-PDF-_p_3582.html
Abbreviated Praise to the Twenty-one Taras
Available from the FPMT Foundation Store: shop.fpmt.org/Abbreviated-Praise-to-the-Twenty-One-Taras-PDF_p_3466.html
- Vajrasattva Mantra to be recited as much as possible
A Short Vajrasattva Meditation Purification with the Four Opponent Powers
Available from the FPMT Foundation Store: shop.fpmt.org/A-Short-Vajrasattva-Meditation-Purification-with-the-Four-Opponent-Powers-eBook-PDF_p_1223.html
- Padmasambhava Prayers
Recitations of The Prayer to Guru Rinpoche that Spontaneously Fulfills All Wishes (Sampa Lhundrupma)
Available for download: https://fpmt.app.box.com/s/d09kz5j5gzk1z0eggx8dr5hfaqt565lz
Recitations of The Supplication to Guru Rinpoche Clearing the Obstacles on the Path (Barchey Lamsel)
Available for download: https://fpmt.app.box.com/s/rmlbbci39tsyihe2lt00gf50iwuv8kxw
In addition, Ven. Roger reports that pujas are being arranged in monasteries and nunneries in India and Nepal for Rinpoche’s health at this time.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche during the long life puja offered to him, March 11, 2022, Kopan Monastery. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Completed and Planned Practices for Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Health in 2022
We also ask you to join us in rejoicing in the following which has been completed and planned for Rinpoche as advised.
- A White Tara long life puja was offered on March 11, 2022, at Kopan Monastery. This special long life puja involved seven days of preparation led by Khandro-la with the Kopan monks.
- In March, Khandro-la advised that students recite Chenrezig and White Tara mantras for His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s health, for the fulfilment of all their wishes, and for the benefit of all in the FPMT organization. Incredibly, during the most meritorious period from Losar up to and including the last of the Days of Miracles, Chotrul Duchen, a total of 12,719,479 mani mantras and 1,759,396 White Tara mantras were offered by FPMT students and centers around the world.
- In May, Khandro-la advised FPMT students to recite refuge and bodhicitta prayers, and FPMT students and centers around the world have been offering these prayers.
- An all day Most Secret Hayagriva tsog kong, was offered by the Kopan Lama Gyupas and senior monks and nuns of Kopan on June 24, 2022.
- 17,417 pounds of cockles were liberated for Rinpoche’s health by Ven. Drachom at Amitabha Buddhist Centre, Singapore.
- Three long life deity thangkas will be painted and consecrated in one day in July 2022.
- Painting for the three main stupas in Kathmandu will be offered in July 2022.
- One horse and ten sheep will be liberated in Mongolia in July 2022.
- Lama Chopa long life puja will be offered at Kopan Monastery at the end of the November lamrim course.
- Guru Rinpoche bum tsog and raising of the great thangka of Guru Rinpoche at Kopan Nunnery will happen at the end of 2022.
Please join the entire FPMT community by engaging in these powerful advised practices for the long life and health of our most precious spiritual director, Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Students can also recite the long life prayer that Khandro Kunga Bhuma composed for Lama Zopa Rinpoche in 2016.
A complete list of the long life prayers for Lama Zopa Rinpoche is available to all.
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.
Visit our Long Life Puja Fund page to learn more about the purpose of long life pujas and opportunities to offer support for them.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche giving a teaching to the participants of the three-month Vajrasattva retreat at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, April 2022. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave this teaching to students attending the three-month Vajrasattva retreat at Kopan Monastery in Nepal on April 28, 2022. Here’s a summary of Rinpoche’s teaching. You can find the video of the teaching and a link to the transcript below.
Whether you believe in karma or not, your negative karma increases without purification. It doesn’t matter if you are a believer or a nonbeliever. Rinpoche gives the example of a doctor saying you have cancer, but you believe you don’t have cancer. Does that help? Does this mean you don’t have cancer? Without purification, karma continues to increase until it becomes like a mountain. Without practicing Vajrasattva, a small negative karma increases day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year. Each time you do the Vajrasattva practice, your mind becomes clean. However, even though you can purify negative karma, by committing mistakes again and again, your realizations become postponed. You can continue to make mistakes and purify through Vajrasattva, but what happens is that it becomes harder and harder to have realizations on the path; your progress is postponed. This is important to remember.
The greatest purification one can do is to please the guru’s holy mind by fulfilling their wishes and advice. This is also the greatest way of collecting extensive merits and the quickest way to achieve enlightenment.
Rinpoche discusses the Four Opponent Powers, which is essential to Vajrasattva practice (starting at 1:12:14 in the video):
- The Power of Reliance
- The Power of Reflecting on the Shortcomings of Negative Karma (the Power of Regret)
- The Power of Always Engaging in the Remedy
- The Power of Not Committing the Negative Karma (Faults) Again
Reciting the Vajrasattva mantra pleases your karmically connected deity and purifies negative karma and stops it from increasing.
There is the hundred syllable mantra, which is recited twenty-one times. But if we can’t recite that, there is: OM VAJRASATTVA HUM, which is recited twenty-eight times.
Rinpoche then discusses the meanings of both mantras and offers instruction for the visualizations and meditations to be done when reciting the mantras (starting at 1:24:48 in the video).
By practicing Vajrasattva, we can purify the five heavy negative karmas without break which cause us to be reborn in hell; and we can achieve the general and sublime realizations. This is why Rinpoche stresses that Vajrasattva practice is so important.
We invite you to go deeper into the topics presented here, plus many others, by watching Rinpoche’s video or reading the full transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “All About Vajrasattva”:
Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave four teachings to students attending the 2022 Vajrasattva retreat: an introductory teaching on March 30 and three subsequent teachings on April 26–28, 2022. You can find all the videos and a combined transcript on our page “Teachings for 2022 Vajrasattva Retreatants at Kopan Monastery.”
Find links to resources to support your Vajrasattva practice in the Foundation Store.
This summary of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching is by Carina Rumrill, based on the live transcript by Ven. Joan Nicell and checked by Laura Haughey, with editorial input and additions by Laura Miller. This summary is meant to highlight key topics presented by Rinpoche in the recorded video and is not intended to serve as a full representation of Rinpoche’s teaching, which is best received through watching the video and/or reading the full transcript.
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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching via Zoom to students in Israel, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, June 2020. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave a teaching over Zoom about Buddhist refuge for the graduation ceremony of the first cohort of Human Spirit, an Israel-based Buddhist-psychoanalytic training program. Here’s a summary of Rinpoche’s teaching, which was offered on June 8, 2022, from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. You can find the video of the teaching and a link to the transcript below.
All happiness and suffering come from the mind, not from the outside, Rinpoche reminds us. Since we want happiness and don’t want suffering, the vast subject of the mind should be of utmost importance for us to investigate. To become healthy—both physically and mentally—we practice meditation, study the Dharma, and learn about the mind in order to clean it up. A negative and unhealthy mind brings sickness and suffering in so many forms. By continuing with effort to clean up the mind, going deeper and deeper through meditation and analysis, you can completely cease delusions and karma and remove the cause of suffering.
By realizing the ultimate nature of the mind—the ultimate nature of I—then we can develop wisdom and realize emptiness. This is ultimate Dharma. The real refuge is ultimate Dharma. This is like taking medicine; it ceases the cause of suffering, delusions, and karma. Since Buddha revealed the path, in the analogy of medicine, Buddha is the doctor. You take refuge in the Buddha when you take refuge in the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha. And the Sangha are those who help you actualize the absolute Dharma and understand conventional Dharma through the scriptures. So this is why we take refuge in the Sangha.
Anger makes us very frightening and ugly, and causes us to want to harm others. So much negative karma of the body, speech, and mind are created when we view others as the enemy. This is why the benefits of practicing patience are unbelievable. By completing the perfection of patience, it is impossible for anger to arise. All the gross and subtle obscurations are ceased, purified. Then the mind becomes an enlightened mind. When the mind becomes enlightened, we can liberate the numberless sentient beings from suffering. This is the ultimate benefit to oneself and others, unlike anger which only harms self and others. When you practice patience, there is no enemy. In this way, the person who gives you an opportunity to practice patience is the most precious one in your life!
We invite you to go deeper into the topics presented here, plus many others, by watching Rinpoche’s video and reading the full transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “The Real Refuge Is Your Wisdom Realizing the Ultimate Nature”:
Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.
This summary of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching is by Carina Rumrill, based on the live transcript by Ven. Joan Nicell and checked by Laura Haughey, with editorial input and additions by Laura Miller. This summary is meant to highlight key topics presented by Rinpoche in the recorded video and is not intended to serve as a full representation of Rinpoche’s teaching, which is best received through watching the video and/or reading the full transcript.
Find resources to support your practice of refuge, including video teachings from Rinpoche as well as FPMT Education’s practice materials and programs.
You can learn more about Human Spirit in our 2016 story “Human Spirit: Bridging Buddhism and Psychoanalysis in Israel.”
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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche in the Kopan Monastery gompa, Nepal, May 2022. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this video, which was recorded in April 2018 at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion in Bendigo, Australia, by reminding us of the benefits of making even a tiny offering to a holy object. But, Rinpoche explains, those benefits are far exceeded by the mere thought of benefiting sentient beings.
Rinpoche quotes from Lama Atisha’s Lamp of the Path to Enlightenment:
Gang gi thäl mo jar gyi te
Jang chhub tu ni sem tü na
Chhö pa di ni kyä par phag
De la tha ni ma chhi so
This is surpassed by
The offering of putting the palms together
And generating bodhicitta,
For such is limitless.
Rinpoche then mentions a quotation on bodhicitta from Shantideva’s Bodhicharyavatara:
Phän par sam pa tsam gyi kyang
Sang gyä chö lä khyä phag na
Even the mere thought to benefit someone
Surpasses making offerings to the buddhas.
Rinpoche explains how it is shown that the mere thought of benefiting a single sentient being, surpasses skies of offerings done to all the buddhas.
When our motivation is to achieve enlightenment for the numberless sentient beings, to free them from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to peerless happiness, the total cessation of obscurations and completion of realizations, this is truly incredible, because it is for all sentient beings. So this creates an unbelievable amount of merit. And it is so important to remember the benefits of bodhicitta.
Watch the video “There Are No Limits to the Benefits of Bodhicitta”:
The above video is extracted from a teaching given on April 13, 2018, at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion in Bendigo, Australia. You can find more blogs with short video clips from Rinpoche’s teaching as well as the complete collection of these “Essential Extracts” videos on FPMT.org.
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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche giving a teaching to students attending the three-month Vajrasattva retreat at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, April 2022. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave this teaching to students attending the three-month Vajrasattva retreat at Kopan Monastery in Nepal on April 27, 2022. Here’s a summary of Rinpoche’s teaching. You can find the video of the teaching and a link to the transcript below.
If you want to know the truth of the world, the truth of yourself, and if you want to be free from the oceans of samsaric suffering, then you have to know the root cause of suffering, Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains. The world is full of things that are a waste of time. If you don’t know what is right or wrong, your meditation will not amount to anything, and you can waste so much of this life. You need to meet the correct teachings and that depends on merit. And you have to have faith and make correction prayers and dedications. Otherwise, it’s difficult. You could meet Buddhism but fall into eternalism or nihilism.
Rinpoche offers the retreatants a brief history of how the first month-long Kopan Course began (14:37 in the video). There have been fifty-two courses since this first course in 1971.
Generating bodhicitta when listening to the teachings is unbelievable. Even if we don’t have realizations, listening to the teachings with a bodhicitta motivation and offering them to numberless sentient beings is unbelievable. This means we listen to the teachings and dedicate to every hell being, every hungry ghost, every animal, including every ant and mosquito. So we listen to the teachings for them—not only to free them from samsara and bring them to nirvana, but for their ultimate happiness, the total cessation of obscurations and the completion of realizations.
Rinpoche leads the group in offering coffee and cake, including the Clouds of Offering Mantra (48:08 in the video).
Rinpoche continues the teaching, saying that it is so important to understand what the I is. All problems go away when we understand this, Rinpoche assures us. But when we believe in the hallucinated appearance of the I, so many problems arise. Because we don’t know the cause of happiness, due to ignorance, we destroy the cause as if it was an outside enemy. In fact, we rush to create the cause of suffering—like a fisherman who desires happiness and rushes to catch fish for money or pleasure, and due to that killing gets reborn as a fish and gets killed in future lives. Abandoning nonvirtue is the source of happiness. If we can abandon killing, for example, even a mosquito in our room, this becomes the source of happiness for us, and also so much happiness for the beings we don’t harm. In addition, the best protection from being killed is to stop killing.
Rinpoche explains the four parts of completing the action of killing (1:17:12 in the video), discusses the purification practice utilizing the four powers (1:43:19 in the video), and offers some stories of those who have committed the heavy negative karma of killing and how they purified these mistakes.
We invite you to go deeper into the topics presented here, plus many others, by watching Rinpoche’s video or reading the full transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “Abandoning Nonvirtue Is a Source of Happiness for You”:
Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave four teachings to students attending the 2022 Vajrasattva retreat: an introductory teaching on March 30 and three subsequent teachings on April 26–28. We will release the concluding teaching soon. You can find them on our page “Teachings for 2022 Vajrasattva Retreatants at Kopan Monastery.”
Find links to resources to support your Vajrasattva practice in the Foundation Store.
This summary of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching is by Carina Rumrill, based on the live transcript by Ven. Joan Nicell and checked by Laura Haughey, with editorial input and additions by Laura Miller. This summary is meant to highlight key topics presented by Rinpoche in the recorded video and is not intended to serve as a full representation of Rinpoche’s teaching, which is best received through watching the video and/or reading the full transcript.
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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche giving a teaching to students attending the three-month Vajrasattva retreat at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, April 2022. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
“Your coming here to do Vajrasattva, wow, that’s really what you need,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche told the students attending the three-month Vajrasattva retreat at Kopan Monastery in Nepal on April 26, 2022. Here’s a summary of Rinpoche’s teaching. You can find the video of the teaching and a link to the transcript below.
The more wealth one accumulates, the more attachment, dissatisfaction, and miserliness can develop, Rinpoche teaches. A beggar who lives every day begging for a little money is content with that. But those who have millions and billions of dollars suffer so much, and so much unhappiness arises.
There are many different levels of truth because there are so many hallucinations in life. By attending a meditation course like the Vajrasattva retreat at Kopan Monastery, one is learning about the hallucinations of life and all the levels of conventional truth. As we learn more through analytical and fixed meditation, the mind becomes happier and happier. Then, by benefiting others with a good heart—even one insect or one person—the mind has the greatest happiness, and life is so worthwhile. Practicing a good heart keeps depression away, and we can die smiling because life has been lived in service to others. If we are always angry, and follow a selfish mind, we create so much unhappiness in life and destroy the immune system, Rinpoche warns.
The Buddha’s teachings are from someone who has omniscience, perfect power, and compassion embracing every sentient being. By deciding to follow the Buddha’s teachings, one makes the most correct decision, Rinpoche says. A hallucinated I, a false I, is the root of samsara, ignorance. If we don’t like problems, we should be working to free ourselves from samsara. Therefore, we need to listen to the correct teachings from a correct guide, and then reflect and meditate, and then realizations come.
Rinpoche offers three ways to meditate on emptiness and provides commentary for each (starting at 1:38:40 in the video):
- Meditate that everything is a hallucination.
- Meditate that everything is merely imputed.
- Meditate that everything is empty.
Rinpoche then quotes Lama Tsongkhapa:
“Ignorance, which is in the nature of exaggeration, exaggerates the discrimination of good or bad. Then attachment and anger arise. Therefore, the way this [wrong concept] apprehends [objects] can also be eliminated by logic.”
Attachment and anger arise after the discrimination of good and bad. First we believe everything is truly existent, then we assign good or bad, and then attachment and anger arise. We can understand how our concepts and thoughts are wrong using this logic. And once we see that they are wrong, then we can eliminate them. In everyday life, practice seeing things as empty. Then, by actualizing emptiness, we can stop the creation of delusion and karma and become free from the suffering of samsara forever. Then, we achieve ultimate happiness, and with bodhicitta, we achieve enlightenment.
We invite you to go deeper into the topics presented here, plus many others, by watching Rinpoche’s video or reading the full transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “By Doing Vajrasattva, You Are Doing Exactly What You Need to Do”:
Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave four teachings to students attending the 2022 Vajrasattva retreat: an introductory teaching on March 30 and three subsequent teachings on April 26–28. You can find them on our page “Teachings for 2022 Vajrasattva Retreatants at Kopan Monastery.”
Find links to resources to support your Vajrasattva practice in the Foundation Store.
This summary of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching is by Carina Rumrill, based on the live transcript by Ven. Joan Nicell and checked by Laura Haughey, with editorial input and additions by Laura Miller. This summary is meant to highlight key topics presented by Rinpoche in the recorded video and is not intended to serve as a full representation of Rinpoche’s teaching, which is best received through watching the video and/or reading the full transcript.
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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Khandro Kunga Bhuma, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, March 2022. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Every year FPMT CEO Ven. Roger Kunsang, on behalf of the FPMT organization, checks with Khandro-la (Khandro Kunga Bhuma) to determine what practices should be done to help create the conditions for FPMT’s Spiritual Director, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, to have a long life and good health for the coming year. In addition to the pujas and practices already advised, Khandro-la’s recent observation is that there are still obstacles to Rinpoche’s health.
Ven. Roger shared, “Khandro-la is therefore strongly advising students to continue to offer practices dedicated for Rinpoche’s good health, and now specifically to recite refuge and bodhicitta prayers. We sincerely request students to start this now or as soon as possible, and to continue over the coming two months. Individual students can offer this practice themselves, and we encourage centers to organize group practice sessions for this.”
We appreciate everyone’s swift engagement with these recommended prayers, dedicating strongly for Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s health and very long life.
Taking Refuge and Generating Bodhicitta
Sang gyä chhö dang tshog kyi chhog nam la
Jang chhub bar du dag ni kyab su chhi
Dag gi jin sog gyi päi tshog nam kyi
Dro la phän chhir sang gyä drub par shog
I take refuge until I am enlightened
In the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Supreme Assembly.
By my merits of generosity and so forth,
May I become a buddha to benefit transmigratory beings.
From FPMT Education Services’ Daily Prayers.
* Lama Zopa Rinpoche advised to replace sö nam (Tib. gsod rnams) in the third line with tshog nam (Tib. tshogs rnams), in accordance with His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s advice, and to translate tshog nam as “merits,” rather than “accumulation” or “collections.” Rinpoche explains that the two types of merits are the merits of virtue and the merits of wisdom, which are often translated as the “accumulation of merit” and the “accumulation of wisdom,” respectively.
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.
For Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s explanation of the prayer for taking refuge and generating bodhicitta, students can follow the Living in the Path module “The Refuge and Bodhichitta Verse” (free, registration require). In it, Lama Zopa Rinpoche unpacks each word of these deceptively simple four lines to reveal their great profundity and tells us how to meditate on the whole path to enlightenment while reciting it.
The Long Life Puja Fund always contributes to long life pujas offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche. You can also learn about the many Charitable Projects of FPMT and discover how the various funds and projects are benefiting others.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche offering a Milarepa initiation in Shavapuri Village, Nepal, April 6, 2022. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
The great yogi Milarepa (1040-1123) is one of the most revered figures in Tibetan history and among all sects of Tibetan Buddhism. Milarepa’s guru was the famous translator, Marpa (1012-1097), himself the main disciple of Naropa (1016-1100).
Marpa taught Milarepa through a variety of seemingly futile tasks. One famous story records that Milarepa was instructed to build a large tower out of nearby boulders. Once the tower was complete, he was asked to tear it down and rebuild it in another location. Once this task was complete, he again was instructed to tear it down and rebuild. Other stories account for Marpa’s teachings on enduring and persevering through hardships. Milarepa’s devotion to his guru enabled him to progress on the path quickly.
Statue of Milarepa that was brought to the initiation by Ven. Drachom. Photo by Ven. Sarah Thresher.
On April 6, Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered a Milarepa initiation and teachings to a small group of senior Kopan monks, senior Khachoe Ghakyil Ling nuns, Western sangha, and some lay students. The occasion of this initiation was for Ven. Tenzin Drachom (Fred Cheong), a long-time Singaporean student who required the initiation prior to engaging in personal retreat. The initiation was offered in Shivapuri Village, an eco-resort and conservation farm a short distance northwest of Kopan Monastery. The resort is located within the beautiful hills of Shivapuri Nagarjun National Park, which is a protected area for a diversity of wild animals.
Rinpoche arrived at Shivapuri Village at 11 a.m. for the initiation preparation while the attendees had lunch, kindly sponsored by Ven. Drachom. The teachings started around 3 p.m. with Rinpoche offering profound commentary on “Milarepa’s Hymn,” including the advice that the way to really enjoy happiness in this life is by giving up desire.
According to Ven. Thubten Khadro, who was in attendance, “Rinpoche also taught on the benefits of taking this initiation, which includes being reborn as a disciple of Milarepa and receiving direct teachings from him, and by virtue of reciting Milarepa’s mantra seven times daily, one won’t be reborn in the lower realms. Rinpoche also read ‘Calling the Guru from Afar,’ a prayer composed by Jamyang Chokyi Lodro, as a motivation for the initiation. The initiation itself was short and concluded with a blissful tsog that included vegan cakes!”
We invite you to watch the teaching that Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered prior to the Milarepa initiation. A full transcript of this teaching is available.
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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche turning prayer wheels at Atisha Centre, Bendigo, Victoria, Australia, April 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
In the new book The Power of Mantra: Vital Practices for Transformation, Lama Zopa Rinpoche guides students through understanding the power and benefit of mantras. Rinpoche explains many popular mantras, giving specific instructions for practicing them, including Shakyamuni Buddha, Chenrezig, Manjushri, Tara, Medicine Buddha, Vajrasattva, and more. In an excerpt from the chapter on Chenrezig mantra, Rinpoche discusses the importance of OM MANI PADME HUM:
Compassion is not just for those with faith in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. It is not just for those who are Buddhist, for those who seek enlightenment. Everyone needs compassion. No matter what style of life we have, the compassionate life is the best life. With that, our life is totally transformed. Before it was like kaka, but now it is transformed into gold. Before there was just ego, the self-cherishing mind, but now there is compassion. Compassion brings a huge difference in our life, like the difference between the earth and the sky.
Everybody needs to recite OM MANI PADME HUM to develop compassion. We are so fortunate that with our human body we are able to communicate and to chant Chenrezig’s mantra. Ants need to recite it, whales need to, monkeys need to, but they can’t.
In many areas in Tibet and Nepal, especially along trails, there are a lot of stupas and stones carved with the Chenrezig mantra. You can see big piles of these stones, called “mani stones,” as you leave the airport at Lukla [in Solu Khumbu, Nepal]. Sometimes a whole text, such as the Heart Sutra, is carved on a stone. One of my uncles, my teacher who first taught me the alphabet when I was four, carved mani stones like this. Because of the mantra’s great benefit, you can see it everywhere, adorning prayer flags and stones, and you can hear people reciting the mantra as they pass.
Just seeing mantras on stones purifies our obscurations by leaving impressions on the mind. As with prayer flags, when the wind touches these mantras and then touches a human being or animal, it purifies the negative karmas and obscurations of that sentient being.
Just like Westerners like to recite their mantra “Oh when can I be happy,” Tibetans like to recite OM MANI PADME HUM. They recite it while they are working, cooking, or doing any of the chores they need to do. When they are not serving customers, shopkeepers recite OM MANI PADME HUM. As they walk, Tibetans will invariably have a small prayer wheel full of mani mantras, which they spin clockwise as they recite.
Prayer wheels are my hobby; they offer so many benefits. The huge prayer wheels I ask the FPMT centers to build bless all the insects on the ground and in the area, besides all the people who turn them. They are such a great blessing for the area and a quick way to liberate sentient beings from the lower realms and enlighten them. Any person who circumambulates and turns the prayer wheel receives unbelievable purification. If a prayer wheel has one hundred million manis, one turn is equivalent to saying one hundred million OM MANI PADME HUM mantras.
And that is true even of the small, hand-held prayer wheels you always see Tibetans spinning as they walk. Because of methods such as microfiche printing, they can have millions of manis in a small wheel, so one turn creates incredible merit, no matter what they are doing. Reciting OM MANI PADME HUM makes the most mundane activity highly meaningful.
The old mothers in Solu Khumbu chant OM MANI PADME HUM so much. They have almost no intellectual understanding of the Dharma, and they can’t even understand it if a lama comes to teach, because he teaches in Tibetan, not Sherpa, the only language they speak. Being illiterate, they can’t even open a Dharma book and read it, and so they have no opportunity to learn the Dharma. But by reciting OM MANI PADME HUM, somehow their hearts become so much more compassionate. They may not understand why other beings are suffering so much, but they have a strong natural feeling of compassion for others and the wish to pray for them.
This was true of my mother, who would simply recite OM MANI PADME HUM when a lama was giving teachings. Because of reciting the mani mantra, she had a hundred thousand times more compassion than I have. I can read all the texts but still my compassion is like clouds in the sky: utterly unstable, never lasting. Just before she passed away, she told me that for most of her life she recited fifty thousand manis a day, but as she became older she was no longer able to do that many. Still, I am certain the great power of her compassion came from reciting OM MANI PADME HUM. It gave her a happy, meaningful life and a happy, meaningful death.
There is a tantra called Zung of the Eleven-Face Arya Avalokiteshvara. In it Chenrezig is said to mention,
By reciting my heart mantra, sentient beings receive the bodhisattvas’ holy deeds, the heart of all the Victors, called the heart of transcendental wisdom. In short, for sentient beings tormented by various sufferings, my heart mantra will abide and become a guide for them. Also, this heart mantra hooks the harm-givers, such as the flesh-eaters and other violent spirits, and causes them to generate loving-kindness and compassion. It then brings them to enlightenment.
Furthermore, he says,
Any sentient being who holds my name will abide in nonreturning. They will be completely liberated from all sicknesses and from all the defilements, all the vices collected with the body, speech, and mind.
It is not enough just to be able to say the words of the mantra; we should first cultivate as positive a motivation as we can—and the bodhichitta motivation is the best—and then recite it. Whoever recites the mantra with a bodhichitta motivation is somebody who really knows how to recite it. It is said in the teachings that the greater devotion we have for Chenrezig, the more power and benefit the mantra has.
From The Power of Mantra: Vital Practices for Transformation by Lama Zopa Rinpoche; compiled and edited by Gordon McDougall; published by Wisdom Publications (WisdomExperience.org), where you can order the paperback or digital versions of the book. You can also find the ebook and PDF version in the Foundation Store (shop.fpmt.org).
Visit the Foundation Store to also find a wide variety of Chenrezig practice materials. For more on mantras, see our Mantras page on FPMT.org.
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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche writing out the Prajnaparamita Sutra, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, January 2022. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
During these difficult times, FPMT Spiritual Director Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues to offer profound advice and inspiration to the FPMT organization. Rinpoche’s message in the FPMT Annual Review 2021: Sharing and Preserving the Dharma in a Changing World focuses on having the correct motivation. He explains how our purpose in life is to benefit every single living being, to cherish and offer compassion to not only those who benefit us, but those who are strangers, and even those who harm us. Here is an excerpt from Rinpoche’s advice:
My Most Dear, Most Kind, Most Precious Wish-fulfilling Ones,
It is so important to continually develop compassion for sentient beings. That is the source of happiness for every single hell being, hungry ghost, animal, human being, sura being, asura being, and intermediate state being.
It is said in the sutra Perfectly Contained Holy Dharma of Arya Compassionate One (འཕག་པ་སྤྱན་རས་གཟིགས་གྱི་ཆོས་ཡང་དག་པར་སྡུད་པ་ལས):
If you wish to achieve enlightenment quickly, do not follow many Dharmas. Follow one Dharma. What is that? That is great compassion. Whoever has great compassion has all the Dharmas of the buddhas in the palm of their hands. They are achieved without effort. In short, great compassion is the root of all Dharma.
It is said in the Middle Gomrim:
Even if you are standing, even if you are going, you should meditate on great compassion toward sentient beings.
This just mentions two activities as an example, but it means all the actions—sleeping, eating, working, reading, writing, everything—should be done with compassion. This is the advice. Especially during that time, you yourself will be at peace and have happiness and other sentient beings won’t receive harm from you.
And it is said in the first verse of the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation, as you know well:
Determined to obtain the greatest possible benefit
From all sentient beings,
Who are more precious than a wish-fulfilling jewel,
I hold them most dear at all times.
This means by cherishing not only the people who help you but even strangers, who neither help or harm you, and then especially cherishing those who harm you—of course, bodhicitta is the best of great compassion—what you get from that person is enlightenment, the total cessation of every mistake, every defilement, and every subtle negative karma, and the completion of all realizations, sang gyä. That is what you get from that person who you call enemy, who abuses you, who harms you with their body, who harms you with their speech, or who harms you with their mind.
As I have mentioned many times in advice given to others, from every sentient being you receive all the past, present, and future happiness, including enlightenment, even the happiness you have in a dream. I can repeat it again here. From this obscured suffering sentient being, even the one who you call enemy, great compassion arises, wishing not only to free sentient beings from suffering but to take that responsibility upon yourself. Then, from there, bodhicitta arises. From bodhicitta, a bodhisattva arises. From a bodhisattva, a buddha arises. A buddha has two actions, one is their own heart’s action and one is within us sentient beings—that is, when we create good karma. So, all our good karma is the buddhas’ actions. Now you can see that from that buddha’s action, good karma, all the past, present, and future happiness, including enlightenment, happened.
Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, who we take refuge in at the beginning of a practice, cause us to protect karma, liberate us from the lower realms, free us from samsara, and cause us to practice the three higher trainings. And not only that, they cause us to achieve enlightenment by freeing us from being caught in the lower nirvana for many eons. Then they cause us to generate bodhicitta, practice the six paramitas, and so forth. Even these extremely precious ones, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, come from every sentient being, from your friends, strangers, and even your enemies. Therefore, the numberless Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, from whom you get all these benefits, come from this mosquito, from this tiniest insect near you on the table, on humid wood, or anywhere. So therefore, these sentient beings are the most precious, most kind, most dear, most wish-fulfilling. Even from this, it makes you think, “How dare I cause them unhappiness?” There is no way to do that. It is totally opposite: they are to be cherished the most. You can see they are the most important, precious one in your life.
So, as it says in that quotation from Middle Gomrim, all day and night your motivation should be compassion. Whatever action you are doing, you are doing it for sentient beings, dedicating it for sentient beings. …
Read Rinpoche’s complete advice in this years online annual review.
Visit FPMT.org, where you can watch more video teachings from Lama Zopa Rinpoche as part of his Teachings on Thought Transformation and find links to related videos, transcripts, MP3s, and additional practice advice.
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.