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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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。
護持大乘法脈基金會”（ 英文簡稱：FPMT。全名：Foundation 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。
Use problems as ornaments, seeing them as extremely precious, because they make you achieve enlightenment quickly, by getting you to achieve bodhicitta. Experience these problems on behalf of all sentient beings, giving all happiness to sentient beings. This is the ornament.
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.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche in Maratika, Nepal, September 2021. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
“We need have strong determination that the goal of bodhicitta is attainable and desirable. For that we need inspiration, and, to my mind, there is nothing more inspirational than Khunu Lama Rinpoche’s Jewel Lamp and the first chapter of Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. These two great bodhisattvas have given us verses of inspiration that are beautiful and profound; verses that are good to read and reread many, many times,” writes Gordon McDougall in the “Editor’s Preface” of The Nectar of Bodhicitta: Motivations for the Awakening Mind, a new book by Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
In the book, Rinpoche’s teachings on bodhicitta have been assembled into two parts. In Part One, Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches on selected verses by Khunu Lama Rinpoche. Lama Zopa Rinpoche says, “Understanding and constantly reminding ourselves of the skies of benefits that bodhicitta brings is unbelievably worthwhile. This is the overall purpose of Khunu Lama Rinpoche’s book, to cause us to feel inspired and joyful that such a mind is possible.”
In Part Two, Rinpoche teaches on Shantideva’s verses, which describe the amazing benefits of developing the precious mind of bodhicitta, the supreme cause of happiness for all sentient beings.
Here is a short excerpt from Part One of The Nector of Bodhicitta by Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Do Everything With Bodhicitta
Every action we do should be done with bodhicitta
Whatever action we do with a selfish motivation is not only a complete waste of time, it causes only further future suffering. On the other hand, any action done with a selfless bodhicitta motivation is utterly worthwhile. Therefore, every action we do, every action, should be done with the thought to benefit others. As Khunu Lama Rinpoche says in The Jewel Lamp:
[338] When you walk, walk with bodhicitta. When you sit, sit with bodhicitta. When you stand, stand with bodhicitta. When you sleep, sleep with bodhicitta.
[339] When you look, look with bodhicitta. When you eat, eat with bodhicitta. When you speak, speak with bodhicitta. When you think, think with bodhicitta.
Twenty-four hours a day, every action we do should be done with bodhicitta, not for ourselves but for others. No matter what action we do, if it’s done with the mind cherishing others it’s a Dharma action, one that will lead us to peerless happiness and lead all others to peerless happiness. On the other hand, as long as our actions don’t oppose the self-cherishing thought, they are worldly actions, done out of worldly concern, and can only result in increasing our ignorance and in having to experience future suffering.
I was so inspired by Khunu Lama Rinpoche’s verses that I thought it might be good to advertise them for people to see them and bring them into their lives. You can have the verses printed on a cup and remember them when you drink coffee or have them as a bumper sticker on your car. (The car I use in America is covered in Dharma slogans!) One way I actually did this was by having some people produce bookmarks with these ideas on them. They became very popular. We modified the verses for the bookmark, which finally said,
Live with compassion Work with compassion Die with compassion Meditate with compassion Enjoy with compassion When problems come, experience them with compassion
It is possible to do every action with bodhicitta. When we eat, we can eat to satisfy our greed or we can eat to sustain ourselves in order to best help others.
The purpose of our life is to help free all beings from suffering. That’s the reason we are alive; that’s the reason for our survival, each day, each hour, each minute—to eliminate all the suffering of every kind mother sentient being. With this motivation, every second of our life becomes incredibly meaningful, not narrow but infinite like the limitless sky. It gives meaning to every tiny thing we do. With a bodhicitta motivation, every action becomes a Dharma action; every action becomes immense, with great, great meaning.
When we generate bodhicitta, such as saying the refuge and bodhicitta prayer with our palms together to the Buddha, we collect far greater merit than making offerings of buddha fields equaling the number of grains of sand of the Ganges river, filled with jewels, diamonds, silver and gold. If the benefits could materialize, even the sky would not be enough to hold them. …
Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching by explaining that people who don’t understand holy Dharma use prayers to pray for success in this life alone—for their relationships, their children, and other situations that will end at the end of this life. No matter how many degrees they have from Oxford or Cambridge University or how much they study science, they pray for this life only without praying for enlightenment or liberation from samsara or even the happiness of future lives. They don’t know about Dharma, karma, reincarnation, or past and future lives. And if human beings are like this, what about animals? They just run around after food all of the time. This is ignorance.
When you experience happiness, it is due to the kindness of mother sentient beings—every hell being, every hungry ghost, every animal, every human being, every sura being, every asura being, every intermediate state being. When you experience happiness, it is important to think, “I have received this by the kindness of others.” The other thing to think about when happiness occurs is that every happiness is thanks to the kindness of the guru.
Just like your consciousness has no beginning, your wrong concepts—which mean your delusions, ignorance, self-cherishing thought, attachment, and anger—are also beginningless. The antidote to impure appearances is tantra, Rinpoche explains. In tantra you visualize everything as pure—yourself as the deity, the place as the mandala, the beings you encounter as deities, sounds as mantras, thoughts as the dharmakaya. In tantra, the root of samsara is the impure subtle consciousness and wind. The continuation of all the wrong concepts has no beginning, so your suffering of samsara’s continuation also has no beginning. If you can remember that samsaric suffering is beginningless, you will immediately abandon nonvirtue and practice virtue. Once you think about beginningless samsaric suffering, hell, and the sufferings of all the realms, there is no time for self-cherishing, no time for all the negative karma.
In the West, people think, “I am alone, nobody loves me!” If you are Buddhist you must know that numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas cherish you the most! You are never alone. Buddha gave away his wives, sons, wealth, and body for sentient beings—including you! He practiced the six paramitas for sentient beings, including you! Buddha has perfect power—perfect holy body, holy speech, and holy mind—unlike us, who are limited. Buddha’s holy mind is everywhere. Once your obscurations are purified, you will see numberless buddhas wherever you are. Buddha’s compassion embraces all sentient beings, including you, all the time.
From the buddhas, you receive a perfect human rebirth, the happiness of this life, the happiness of future lives, liberation from samsara, and enlightenment. They buddhas are working for you by manifesting in the ordinary aspect of the guru. All of your happiness comes from the guru. This is a very important thing for you to remember!
All of your happiness comes from the guru, but all of your suffering comes from harming others. Shantideva’s Bodhicharyavatara says:
If I hadn’t harmed others,
Nobody could harm me.
That means that if you have problems, suffering, depression, even if somebody kills you, beats you, gets angry at you—this is because you harmed them in the past, in past lives. It could have been numberless eons ago. Sometimes as soon as the person sees you in this life, they shoot you, they are angry with you, even before meeting them in this life.
In the view of your disturbed mind, whatever your delusions believe appears to be good. In the view of anger, you think it is good to destroy and harm others. In the view of ignorance, you think it is good to believe things are real. In the view of pride, you believe that it is good to think about how you are better than everyone else. This is all totally wrong. But in your impure view, you believe what you are doing is good. This is the dance of a crazy person.
Someone who harms you is only an object of compassion. You abused that person in past lives, so now they are creating negative karma by harming you. If you hadn’t ever harmed them in the past, they wouldn’t have to harm you now due to karma! And because of harming you, they will have to get lost in the hole of hell. This is why you must only have patience when someone harms you; don’t harm them back. You must help the person, even just recite OM MANI PADME HUM. Do whatever you can do to create benefit.
If you have depression, cancer, the virus, or any suffering, think, “By experiencing this, may all sentient beings be free from disease, spirit harm, negative karma, defilements, and achieve enlightenment.” This will help you from sinking into despair, thinking, “Why is this happening to me? I’m the only one who this happens to!”
The main purpose of practicing thought transformation is not to stop suffering. While you are suffering with pain or a problem, you use that as the path to enlightenment, to benefit sentient beings and cause them to achieve enlightenment. If the problem stops, you have no condition to use in the path to enlightenment. If you want to stop the problem—you can do this with the power of bodhichitta and the good heart.
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.
Rinpoche giving a video teaching in Maratika, Nepal, September 2021. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation, recording this time in Maratika, Nepal. Rinpoche gave this teaching on the topic of depression at the request of a student. It was transmitted via Zoom to a live audience of students, mainly from Singapore, China, and Taiwan.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching explaining that to understand depression, we first have to understand our own craziness. Then, when we think of others, we will be able to more easily develop compassion.
Rinpoche then begins an explanation of how the I exists. There are non-Buddhist philosophies that believe that the I is permanent, exists alone, and has its own freedom. The four schools of Buddhist philosophy do not accept that. They believe that the I is impermanent and changes by causes and conditions, year by year, second by second.
As an example, Rinpoche talks about how a flower changes day by day to explain gross impermanence, which is evident in visible changes. When a person is young, they can appear beautiful, but over time that changes. Their entire form can change, and they are no more an object of attraction, of attachment. If you become attached to the beauty of an object, this brings so much pain and suffering to your heart due to impermanence. Because beauty changes, there’s nothing to be attached to.
Rinpoche then discusses how we mistakenly think that the I exists as permanent, alone, and with its own freedom. He also goes over other mistaken views of how the I exists, including those of some of the Tibetan Buddhist schools. But, Rinpoche acknowledges, the Chittamatra view that everything comes from the mind can help depression.
Emotions and problems come from the basic wrong concept that believes that the I is permanent, exists alone, and exists with its own freedom. From that, emotions and all the problems come. You fight while holding your wrong view—you kill and smash. It’s childish. Then in the view of a mind disturbed by spirit possession and delusions, harmful actions appear to be positive! For example, Rinpoche explains, when anger arises, a disturbed mind thinks that it is positive.
Attachment and anger arise based on how ignorance discriminates good and bad. Quoting from Lama Tsongkhapa in Lamrim Chenmo:
Ignorance, which is in the nature of exaggeration, exaggerates the differentiations into good and bad. Then attachment and anger arise. Therefore, the way of holding [objects] by these [wrong concepts] can also be gotten rid of by logic.
Rinpoche explains that an object is merely labeled. On the basis of that, ignorance exaggerates the object and sees it as not merely labeled. Then based on that exaggeration, you discriminate good and bad. After that, anger and attachment come. You can prove that anger and attachment are wrong and come from wrong concepts.
So, where is the depression? Attachment and anger. There is the depression that you understand the reason for and depression that you don’t know the reason for. In some cases, you know why you are feeling depressed. You wanted something that you didn’t get. Your attachment or self-cherishing didn’t get what it wants. In other cases, you don’t know why you are feeling depressed, and that is related to your past life actions of nonvirtue, your negative karma.
Depression does not come from the view of bodhichitta. Even if you have the view of effortful bodhichitta, you will not be depressed, Rinpoche explains. There is also no depression if you have the view of wisdom realizing emptiness.
So depression comes from the basic wrong concept of how the I exists. Your wrong concepts are the real craziness. There is so much to meditate on, to analyze, to learn, and to recognize. You have to discover the truth in your life, Rinpoche says. It is so important.
Rinpoche then discusses the Prasangika view of how the I exists. This ultimate right view is what we need to meditate on, realize, and develop because it ceases the seed of delusion and karma. The I that exists, exists in mere name, labeled by the mind that focuses on the valid base, the aggregates. That’s it, Rinpoche explains. Therefore, it is totally empty. There is not one atom of I exiting from its own side. Because nothing exists from its own side, there is no basis for depression to arise.
What can we do when we experience depression?
Practice mindfulness that nothing exists from its own side.
As you live your life, practice mindfulness that every action, every object, every phenomenon is totally empty. Like this, the depression is also empty; nothing exists from its own side.
Practice mindfulness that everything is a hallucination.
Whatever you do—the appearances, all the different wrong views that you have—understand that everything comes from the mind. So you recognize the dream as a dream. This helps keep the unhappy mind from arising. It also helps the immune system as anger has a negative effect on the immune system as well. So this also protects you from disease. So, loving kindness, peace, satisfaction, contentment, patience—all these help your physical health as well as your mental health.
Rinpoche offers a more detailed commentary on these points in the video, and anyone wishing to use Rinpoche’s advice to reduce depression is encouraged to watch the video and follow along in the transcript for the full advice.
Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “From Where Depression Comes”:
Lama Zopa Rinpoche making prayers in front of sacred images in a museum of Newari art, Kathmandu, Nepal, July 2021. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
In the following short video, Lama Zopa Rinpoche examines the question of why certain things happen:
Why does a tornado pick up a car and drop it out of the sky, killing a certain person? Why are leaves and petals of a flower made a certain way? What decides the colors of a butterfly’s wings or the colors of a peacock’s tail?
Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains that the answer to all these questions is karma, in particular, subtle karma. Because all these things come from karma, that also means they all come from the mind.
Rinpoche says, “Because of that, we can create suffering, we can create happiness, we can create enlightenment, we can create hell. So we have freedom in our hands.”
In short, Rinpoche explains that we should use our understanding of the external world to understand how our mind has great freedom.
Mingyur Rinpoche, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, and Khadro-la at Swayambunath, Nepal, June 2021. Photo by Ven. Thubten Tendar.
During a retreat in 2017, a student asked Lama Zopa Rinpoche about a bad hurricane that had just caused great damage to parts of the Caribbean and Florida Keys: “If it is the karma of the people on the islands to experience the hurricane, how can we change their karma?” Here is a summary of Rinpoche’s response, which you can watch in the video below:
Rinpoche explains that we pray so that we can purify the negative karma so that the violent weather isn’t experienced and so the landlord beings do not create harm. Praying to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and to the Guru has the power to change things and help people who are in danger.
After all, why do we take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha? “That is a big question. Forget about the hurricane, [and think about] just yourself and how [Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, and the Guru] can guide you,” Rinpoche says.
The lamrim explains there are four reasons why the Buddha can guide you, which Rinpoche discusses. “The Buddha himself is free from all dangers—so skillful in liberating others from all the sufferings, all the dangers—no discriminating thought, compassion to every sentient being.”
Rinpoche emphasizes that it is very important to study the lamrim. “If you never study then [it’s] difficult to understand. You must study [it], over and over, many times,” Rinpoche says, because each time you go over a part of the lamrim you will notice something different.
Rinpoche responded to the question before doing tsog. He tells all the retreat participants, “Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, the merit field, [they] know what we are doing now, what we are asking. … So when you pray you have to know that [this is] not blah, blah, blah. … Then also when you pray you must be aware [that] they know what you are doing now, what you are asking.”
Watch the video “Question and Answer: Can We Change Karma?”
Lama Zopa Rinpoche writing out the Prajnaparamita in pure gold, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, August, 2021. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Recently we shared a video from Lama Zopa Rinpoche explaining some of the profound benefits of writing out the Prajnaparamita Sutra, and some of the history of Rinpoche’s ongoing project to write out this sutra in pure gold which Rinpoche and others have been undertaking for sixteen years including Ven. Tsering, Jane Seidlitz, and recently a monk from Kopan Monastery and a nun from Khachoe Ghakyil Ling Nunnery have joined these meritorious efforts.
We are pleased to share PART TWO of Rinpoche’s teachings on the benefits of Prajnaparamita and invite you to rejoice, again, that after a ten year break due to a stroke, Rinpoche is now writing out this sutra in pure gold again.
By hearing this sutra, writing it down, reading it aloud, or memorizing it, you create more merit than is fathomable. Rinpoche explains that by doing so, from life to life you crush the oceans of samsaric suffering, you crush the delusions. That is how profound this sutra is, it enables you to reach enlightenment.
The Prajnaparamita Project is an FPMT Charitable Project which covers the cost of gold, paper, and calligraphy pens for the ongoing writing out of this most precious and beneficial sutra by Rinpoche and others.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche holding the book Lamrim Year, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, July 2021. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Lamrim Year: Making Life Meaningful Day By Day is an essential guide for students at any level of Buddhist study who want to develop their mind in the graduated path to enlightenment (lamrim).
The book was inspired by Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s 2013 advise to students on how they could study the entire lamrim over the course of a year:
“My suggestion would be to divide the twelve months of the year into lamrim meditations and then meditate on each subject for one month or two weeks to finish the whole lamrim in one year. . . . To meditate like this each year, wow, wow, wow! That would be great. Your life would be so rich and you would be getting closer to realization and closer to enlightenment. At the time of death you can be happy and satisfied that you spent enough of your life practicing Dharma.”
Taking Rinpoche’s advice to heart, Alison Murdoch, who compiled and edited Lamrim Year, set out to work her way through the indispensable lamrim text Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, by the great Buddhist master Pabongka Rinpoche. Finding it hard to maintain daily momentum, she writes in the book’s Editor’s Preface that she had the idea to create “a 365-page daily route map through the lamrim that would consist entirely of extracts from the teachings of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and provide the best possible chance of fulfilling Rinpoche’s advice in the rough and tumble of modern life.”
Lamrim Year provides a 365-day outline of the graduated path in a clear, practical format that is suitable for both individual and group practice. Each day has a page with a quote and text selected from four decades of teachings by Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. The page concludes with a recap summarizing the main points for reflection and a reference to the lamrim topics covered, which closely follows the outline in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand.
Here’s an excerpt from Lamrim Year: Making Life Meaningful Day By Day, published by Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive:
Day 64: The Perfect Human Rebirth (Lama Zopa Rinpoche)
“An appreciation of the perfect human rebirth is fundamental to our Dharma journey” —Lama Zopa Rinpoche
The great meditator, Lama Tsongkhapa, who formalized the whole lamrim structure, broke the lamrim up into two: appreciation of this life of freedom and richness—the perfect human rebirth—and how to make use of this precious opportunity—the rest of the lamrim topics from impermanence and death, refuge and karma up to the point where we attain full enlightenment.
The lamrim is not like a buffet, where we can pick and choose whatever we fancy. We have to eat the whole feast, otherwise we won’t get what we want, liberation or enlightenment. When we explore the lamrim we will see how each topic leads to the next and how each is therefore indispensable. The meditations on the perfect human rebirth come right at the beginning of the path, just after relying on a spiritual teacher. We need to understand karma and we need to have refuge, and to deepen our commitment we need to understand impermanence and death. But none of that will happen if we squander this precious and unique opportunity that we now have, this one time only.
Only those of us with this perfect human rebirth can become inner scientists and discover the true cause of happiness. We’re unbelievably fortunate. We have the opportunity to study, meditate, and understand everything that the Buddha taught, from the simplest lamrim topic to the most advanced. We have the opportunity to develop the altruistic heart, the attitude that wishes to be fully awakened to benefit others, and to understand the reality of things and events—emptiness. There is nothing we cannot understand with this perfect human rebirth.
The first section of the lamrim focuses on the perfect human rebirth
Each lamrim topic is an essential step on the journey to enlightenment
Only a perfect human rebirth gives us the opportunity to discover true happiness
For a printed copy of Lamrim Year: Making Life Meaningful Day By Day and links to more excerpts, visit the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website: https://www.lamayeshe.com/shop/lamrim-year-book
Rinpoche continues offering teachings specifically intended for ordained Sangha, but everyone is welcome to benefit from Rinpoche’s advice. He begins this video teaching by reminding us that we have received this perfect human rebirth with the freedom to practice Dharma qualified by the eight freedoms and ten richnesses. This rebirth is extremely rare and precious. Even having the first freedom of not being born in hell is most precious.
It is important to understand your own samsaric suffering. If you don’t, you can’t generate compassion for all sentient beings. You must view being in samsara as being in the center of a fire. You have to feel all of your suffering as unbearable, not as pleasure. From that, great compassion for every sentient being comes. From that, bodhichitta arises—the thought to free all beings from oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment. For that, we need omniscience and enlightenment for ourselves. No one achieves enlightenment without saying goodbye to samsara.
This life is amazing, but it can stop at any time. Right now there are numberless beings dying in the mother’s womb, as babies, as children, in middle age, in old age; one’s breathing can stop at any time. It is like a bubble in water or lightning in the sky.
Rinpoche then discusses the power of holy objects and the benefits of building statues, stupas, and temples. Often building statues and temples doesn’t make sense to Westerners. They think it is too expensive and a waste of money, Rinpoche explains, because they don’t understand the benefits.
Rinpoche quotes from and gives commentary on Sutra Requested by King Prasenajit:
According to however many subtle atoms
Stupas or statues of the Bhagavan have,
For that many lifetimes the human beings who construct them
Will definitely attain wheel-turning king in the deva realm above ground.
They will experience all the supreme grounds
Of perfect concentration of the form and formless realms
And, at the end, they will attain the state of a buddha,
Which is free from the sufferings of birth, aging, and so forth.
Even the creatures killed under the feet of people building a temple will not fall into the lower realms. The teachings of Pandita Nagkyi Rinchen say:
The sentient beings touched by the smoke from preparing food and drink for those making
a place for the Three Rare Sublime Ones to abide and also the creatures killed under the
feet of the workers will not fall into the abodes of the three lower realms.
Even looking at a drawing of a buddha when you are angry causes you to gradually see ten million buddhas. From White Lotus Sutra:
Even if with an angry mind you look
At a drawing of a buddha’s body on a stone wall,
Gradually you will see ten million buddhas.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama said that the real stupa is the realizations of the path to enlightenment within you. You need to dedicate yourself to actualizing the lamrim. No matter how much practice, prostrations, and mantras you do, the main path is listening, reflecting, and meditating on the lamrim.
You cannot receive the blessings of the buddhas without a guru. From Dütsii Nyingpo, Essential Nectar:
Even if the beams of the sun are so hot,
Without a magnifying glass they cannot produce fire.
Like that, also the Buddha’s blessings
Cannot be received without a guru.
Like that, by pleasing the guru,
You please all the buddhas.
The guru is the channel through which the ten-direction buddhas guide you and speak to you. You should serve the guru with the mindfulness that the guru is the channel for all the buddhas. The guru is not just someone who gives you a Dharma education. That is a very ordinary view. Without strong guru devotion, heresy and anger arise in relation to the guru, and you create the heaviest negative karma among the negative karmas. Because the essence is pleasing the guru, you need to concentrate on that in everyday life. By pleasing the guru, negative karmas get burned in one second!
Some people spend their whole lives meditating without an object because they don’t have a correct guru. After some time, your mind becomes dull. In this world it is very difficult to meet a perfect guru. For those that do not have the merit to meet a perfect guru and receive perfect teachings, and who have so much suffering and are going on the wrong path, you can develop compassion for them.
You also cannot achieve enlightenment without bodhichitta. As much as possible, do everything with bodhichitta. Even if you don’t have a realization of bodhichitta, but have a bodhichitta motivation, everything you do becomes a cause for enlightenment. By making requests to your guru with firm devotion, you develop realizations.
In order to achieve enlightenment in a brief lifetime, you need to practice highest yoga tantra because otherwise you lose the opportunity. Then, to be able to develop compassion, to be able to develop the graduated path to enlightenment, you need to purify the obstacles, obscurations, and negative karma, and collect the necessary conditions and merit.
The essence of the practice is persevering in the higher training of morality. You should take the individual liberation vow as your heart practice. Morality is the heart practice. You cannot practice Dharma separately from keeping your promised morality. You should keep the three vows that you have taken: the individual liberation vow, the bodhisattva vows, and the tantric vows.
Where you go in your future life depends on your present actions. You can tell what types of actions you did in the past by looking at your current life, and where you will go next life depends on today.
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 “There Is Nothing More Sublime Than Practicing the Higher Training of Morality”:
Lama Zopa Rinpoche during his thought transformation teachings, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, August 2021. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Since our last update, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has remained in Nepal, engaging in a variety of beneficial activities for others. We invite you to rejoice in Rinpoche’s constant compassionate service to others!
Lama Zopa Rinpoche has been continuing his thought transformation teaching series with specific teachings for ordained Sangha. Rinpoche emphasized that while these teachings were given for Sangha, everyone is encouraged to listen and benefit from the advice. Rinpoche also has continued teaching in Tibetan for Kopan monks and nuns—and for anyone else who speaks Tibetan. Additionally, Rinpoche put together some essential practices in Tibetan, which are freely available. Recent additions are Motivation for Tibetan Elders as well as Sur practice.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Khadro-la, Mingyur Rinpoche, and Tsoknyi Rinpoche during puja at Namo Buddha, Nepal, July 6, 2021. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
In June and July Lama Zopa Rinpoche and other lamas offered several powerful pujas in holy places around Kathmandu and nearby. These pujas were done to benefit all those affected by the pandemic in all ways, and to mitigate the continued spread of the virus. Additionally in August, Rinpoche and the Kopan monks offered Most Secret Hayagriva Elaborate Tsog Puja to benefit the entire FPMT organization and to remove obstacles related to the pandemic. Prayers to Hayagriva are especially beneficial in these degenerate times when sufferings and illnesses are uncontrolled. As a manifestation of Chenrezig, Hayagriva practice also helps develop compassion and is very powerful for generating merit as well.
The consecration of the new stupa in Thame happening at the same time as Rinpoche’s consecration of it from Kopan Monastery, Thame, Solu Khumbu, Nepal, June 2021
On June 21, Rinpoche consecrated a stupa that the Holy Objects Fund is sponsoring in Thame, Nepal. The new stupa stands nearly 46 feet (14 meters) tall with a base measuring 54 feet (16.5 meters) across. It took two years to complete and is larger than the previous stupa, which was destroyed as a result of the 2015 earthquake. Due to travel restrictions, Rinpoche wasn’t able to attend the consecration so he offered the consecration remotely from Kopan Monastery.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche offering prayers to a rescued water buffalo Rinpoche named Bodhichitta, August 2021. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Demonstrating, yet again, his compassionate service to all beings, Rinpoche recently liberated and blessed a water buffalo, which are often butchered for meat in Nepal. The buffalo appeared to have a strong connection to Rinpoche and shed tears while Rinpoche was reciting various mantras and Three Principal Aspects of the Path. You can read more about this heart-warming story.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche offering puja from a restaurant overlooking Boudhanath Stupa, July 2021. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Rinpoche regularly circumambulates Boudhanath Stupa, often late at night, reciting the multiplying mantra while making extensive visualized offerings. On one of these occasions of visiting the stupa to offer prayers, Rinpoche stopped at a restaurant and offered an elaborate tsog puja with auspicious objects to the stupa. Rinpoche also visits Swayambhunath and stops in front of places where the bodies of those who have died are being cremated, spending a long time making prayers and reciting the requesting prayer to Chenrezig.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche watching His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s teachings online from Kopan Monastery. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Rinpoche has watched His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s recent teachings from Kopan Monastery via livestream from www.dalailama.com/live.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche writing out the Prajnaparamita in pure gold. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
In two recent video teachings Rinpoche talks about the history of the project to write out the Prajnaparamita in gold, which Rinpoche and a few others have been working on for the past sixteen years. Rinpoche discusses the benefits of writing out this precious sutra, giving extensive commentary on the sutra’s incredible benefits. He also talks about the process for writing it out, including the need for precise calligraphy and high quality supplies.
These are just a few of the many auspicious activities Lama Zopa Rinpoche has been engaged in over the past two months in Nepal. We invite you to enjoy the new online gallery of photos, which show even more of Rinpoche’s recent activities, in which we can all rejoice:
Rinpoche begins this teaching by reminding us that while we are so fortunate to have received this rare and perfect human rebirth, which is qualified by the eight freedoms and ten richnesses, death can happen at any time, even before this teaching ends.
Therefore, the real purpose of life is not just to achieve liberation from samsara for ourselves alone, but to never harm and only benefit all sentient beings by freeing them from the oceans of samsara, the total cessation of the gross and subtle obscurations and the completion of realizations. That means every single one, including every ant and fly, and even those you can’t see with your eyes. As a human, this should be the purpose of life. This should be our attitude all day and night, even if we are enjoying ourselves in a five-star hotel, even if we are in the process of dying—we can enjoy for sentient beings, we can die for sentient beings! To bring every sentient being to enlightenment by oneself alone is the purpose of life, therefore we must achieve a state of omniscience as quickly as possible. Therefore, I’m going to listen to the teachings.
Rinpoche shares that the current incarnation of Domo Geshe Rinpoche is going to be an incredible benefit to the world by helping the teachings spread and last a long time. Rinpoche currently offers help for this young lamas’ yearly expenses.
Rinpoche also shared some stories of Sera Je Khen Rinpoche Lobsang Delek’s life in the Buxa Duar, the camp in India where refugee Tibetan monks lived in the 1960s.
Rinpoche reminds us that these teachings are specifically for the ordained Sangha, to remind them that it is most important to live a life in ordination and that this is not just some hippie trip. However, anyone is welcome to listen and benefit from this advice.
Rinpoche then discusses sections from Garland of Jewel Light by Geshe Tsewang Samdrub. He begins by offering commentary on the four doors for receiving downfalls from breaking vows:
1. A lack of conscientiousness.
2. A lack of respect.
3. Not knowing the vows.
4. Having many delusions.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama has emphasized the need to live an ethical life, to be a good human being, Rinpoche says. To do this, you need discipline to practice patience, tolerance, compassion, loving-kindness, and forgiveness for those who harm you, and to immediately apologize when you harm others.
Rinpoche explains the four ways to prevent downfalls, citing Garland of Jewel Light:
1. Continuously possessing conscientiousness.
2. Having great respect for the vows of morality.
3. Knowing the vows.
4. Striving in the remedy to the delusions.
When you do these, the doors to making mistakes and downfalls are closed.
Rinpoche then goes over the benefits of protecting morality, again from Garland of Jewel Light:
1. All your collections of goodness will increase and develop.
2. You will be praised by the buddhas.
3. You will be praised by the devas.
4. You will be praised by your friends.
5. You will be worthy of being praised by even yourself.
6. You will be worthy of being naturally praised.
7. Your reputation will cover all the directions.
8. You will listen to the holy Dharma.
9. You will not forget the holy Dharma you listened to.
10. Your realizations of the paths and bhumis will increase.
11. When you die you will be happy and you will go to a happy transmigration.
12. Day and night you will be happy.
13. You will be protected by the devas.
14. You will be happy in front of holy beings.
15. You won’t be able to be harmed by human beings and non-human beings.
16. You will receive whatever enjoyments you need without effort.
17. Whatever prayers you do will succeed.
The results of living in pure vows are very powerful. “You become Dzambhala!” Rinpoche says. “When other people make offerings to you and respect you, they collect much merits. And then, if you pray for them, your prayers are so powerful that there is success for them. Like that, your pujas and your prayers are very powerful.”
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.
Rinpoche begins this teaching by reminding us of how fortunate we are to wake up in the morning with a perfect human rebirth that is qualified by the eight freedoms and ten richnesses. The life we have is like a candle flame in the wind or a bubble in the water, and can be stopped at any time by death. Rinpoche references verse 55 from Nagarjuna’s Letter to a Friend:
Since there are many harms to life, it is more impermanent Than even a water bubble that can be popped by the wind. Therefore, how wonderful it is to have the freedom To be able to wake up from sleep, breathing in and out.
Last night many people went to bed, thinking they had another day to live, but their body became a corpse instead. However, you were able to wake up. Every day you are able to wake up is a real birthday. If you can recognize impermanence and death, it is like skies of happiness! You didn’t die! You aren’t in hell! You weren’t reborn as a hungry ghost or an animal! You can still use your perfect human rebirth to collect merit and purify negative karma. Even reciting OM MANI PADME HUM without a bodhichitta motivation, you collect more merits than drops of water in the ocean, more than blades of grass growing on the hills.
When your breathing stops it will be difficult for your mind to be happy. A verse from Gungthang Tenpai Dronme’s Verses of Advice for Meditating on Impermanence says:
While you are still breathing, If you don’t accomplish stable happiness, When your breathing in and out stops, It will be difficult for your mind to be happy.
Rinpoche then reminds us of the motivation for listening to these teachings. At this time, while we are still breathing, it is not enough to achieve liberation from samsara for oneself. That alone would be a meaningful life, but it is not sufficient. The main purpose of life is to benefit sentient beings, not harming a single one, and more than that to free them from oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment by oneself alone. To do that, we must achieve full enlightenment. Therefore, with a motivation to accomplish this, we listen to the teachings.
Rinpoche offers advice to the gelongs about what brings happiness according to several verses of the Sutra of Individual Liberation (from sojong). You can hear Rinpoche discuss these verses and his commentary on each starting at 11:50 in the video.
Without morality, Rinpoche stresses, we cannot accomplish our own work, let alone successfully work for others. “Therefore,” as noted in the Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva by Thogme Sangpo (verse 26cd), “to protect morality without wishing for samsara is a practice of a bodhisattva.”
For a bodhisattva, those who offer harm are like a precious treasure (Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva, verse 27ab):
For the bodhisattvas who desire the enjoyment of virtue, All harm-givers are like a precious treasure.
Therefore, cherish evil beings like a precious treasure, as advised in Eight Verses for Training the Mind by Langri Tangpa:
When I see sentient beings of evil nature Who engage in negative karma and have much suffering, Since they are difficult to find I will cherish them, Like finding a precious treasure.
Rinpoche stresses that it is important to understand what this means. People who create harm for others create so much negative karma and have so much suffering. When you see that it is like you have found a precious treasure, a diamond, gold, a sapphire, a wish-granting jewel in the garbage. They are so precious and rare that you must cherish them, like how some cherish money so much! Why? Because by cherishing them you generate strong renunciation of your own samsara and sooo much compassion for them. From that, you generate strong bodhichitta, and from that, quick enlightenment. And with that you can liberate the numberless sentient beings from oceans of samsaric suffering. A jewel or money doesn’t do that, but this type of person can! So cherish them.
Another verse Rinpoche emphasizes in this teaching and suggests we write down in our prayer books is verse 28 from Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva:
Since even the hearer-listeners and solitary realizers, who achieve only the works for self, Are seen to make effort, like putting out a fire on the head, It is a practice of a bodhisattva to make effort to receive all qualities For the sake of all transmigratory beings.
Even when you seek liberation for just yourself, when delusion arises, you put effort into getting rid of the delusion, like putting out a spark of fire on your head. But when you do it to liberate every single hell being, hungry ghost, animal, and human being, you do it so they will achieve all the qualities from the Mahayana path, for all of their negative karma and delusions to stop. This is unbelievable! Achieving liberation for oneself is nothing when compared to doing this for numberless beings. You are just one person, but transmigratory beings are numberless. Even mosquitoes and ants are just as important as yourself. So you stop delusions from arising in your own mind for them. It is so important to work for them, to free them from the lower realms and samsara, and to help them achieve enlightenment.
Write the above verse down so you can learn it, Rinpoche says. Otherwise, your motivation will always be controlled by the self-cherishing thought. “Today I don’t feel like it. I don’t want to recite my prayers or OM MANI PADME HUM. I feel too depressed.” Reading this verse helps you remember that you are doing it for all transmigratory beings, not just for yourself.
Rinpoche also suggests writing this verse down so we can remember it (from Shantideva’s Bodhicharyavatara, verse 5.12):
Since the sentient beings who disturb you are like space, You can never finish destroying them. But if you destroy the mind of anger alone, It’s like you have destroyed all outside enemies.
The one enemy you have is inside you—your mind, your anger. How you destroy this enemy is by practicing patience. By controlling the mind, everything else is controlled and you have no fear. The most important practice is to control your mind. Subduing one’s own mind is the teaching of Buddha, the essence of everything.
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 Most Important Practice Is to Control Your Mind”: https://youtu.be/wX6E2ja5TgM
Lama Zopa Rinpoche reciting mantras to a young buffalo that he liberated for His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Kopan monks and nuns, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, August 2021. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Rinpoche begins this teaching by reminding us that we are so fortunate to have received a precious and perfect human rebirth. While it is precious, it is also fragile and can be ended at any time with death. In this precious life we have received teachings on how we should not harm any sentient being, and not just the ones we love and like to help, but including those we don’t like such as mice, rats, spiders, cockroaches, and mosquitoes. When mosquitoes come near your ears you become very concerned with the real I, which doesn’t even exist in mere name. This has been happening since beginningless rebirths. So much suffering, including all wars, comes from believing in the real I! Even spiders and ants suffer due to believing in the real I.
The pandemic and all of the disasters of the world are happening because of ignorance. This all comes from the mind. Therefore, you have to take care of the mind: don’t let it go berserk. If you don’t want to suffer, if you don’t want bad things in the world, if you don’t want problems with the environment, if you want to make a happy world, then take care of the mind.
Rinpoche shares several stories about how great bodhisattvas are able to manipulate the elements or perform actions that look like miracles. They are able to do this due to their minds. Whether you make the world more peaceful or not depends on your mind. Rinpoche also shares the story of how the young incarnation of His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama said, “I’m the one who works for all beings” to the lama Keutsang Rinpoche when he came to check whether the four-year-old child recognized him. Rinpoche expressed being moved to tears when he heard that His Holiness had said that as a young child.
Rinpoche then discusses verses 5.4-5.5 of Bodhicharyavatara:
Tigers, lions, elephants, bears,
Snakes, and all enemies,
The guardians of hell beings,
Evil spirits, and likewise cannibals,
Are all fastened
By fastening only this mind.
They are all subdued
By subduing only this mind.
Rinpoche urges us to write these verses down in our prayer books so we will see them every day. Especially when we are angry or selfish, or when we have so much attachment. When we subdue our minds, everything is subdued. When we have control over our minds, we are free from fear. By controlling our minds and making them free from attachment and anger, from the self-cherishing thought, and from the ignorance holding the I as real when it’s not, then, all those who would otherwise harm us are subdued.
We produce all the suffering we experience with our mind, so the solution for problems, harm, enemies, and fear is to pacify the mind.
Verse 5.12cd of Bodhicharyavatara says:
If you subdue the mind of anger alone,
It is like you have subdued all your enemies.
And as Nagarjuna said:
If you kill your anger,
You kill all your enemies.
We have to learn this if we want to bring peace and happiness to the world. Otherwise, you just talk, talk, talk. Everything depends on whether you control your mind or not. Rinpoche translates verse 5.3 of Bodhicharyavatara as:
If you fasten the elephant of your mind
With the rope of remembrance all the time,
All fears will become nonexistent
And all virtues will come into your hands.
By subduing the mind, which is like a crazy elephant, you can achieve anything you want. Whether or not you experience samsara or nirvana, hell or enlightenment—this all depends on whether or not you control your mind.
Verse 5.17 of Bodhicharyavatara says:
If someone doesn’t know the supreme principal of the Dharma,
The secrecy of the mind,
Even if they wish to achieve happiness and destroy suffering,
They will wander in samsara without meaning.
and verse 5.18cd:
Except for conduct protecting the mind
What is the use of so many conducts?
Rinpoche explains that all the capacities of the mind are based on keeping the higher training of morality. He shares the story of how Lama Yeshe stopped a fire with his mind. He also shares a story about how Geshe Lama Konchog saved a child, who all the doctors said was going to die, by the power of his mind through doing puja. The West needs to learn that world peace comes from the mind, not from outside influence.
Discussing the verses below, Rinpoche says that when you don’t keep and protect your vows and your practice of morality, you will be criticized by all the buddhas, and your friends will scold you. You will even criticize yourself! But if you keep pure morality, all the buddhas will praise you and all of your prayers will succeed.
Chen Nga Lodro Gyaltshen, a Kadampa geshe advised in Dulwäi Lung:
Anyone who does not protect their vows
Will be put down by all the buddhas.
All the devas will criticize them as thieves.
Their friends will scold them.
They will even put themselves down.
They will also naturally be worthy of being criticized.
Their bad reputation will pervade all directions.
They won’t hear the holy Dharma.
Even if they hear it, they will quickly forget it.
They won’t generate the realizations of the grounds and paths.
While regretting, they will die and go to evil migrations.
In dreams, they will see vicious things
And, with suffering, they will be killed.
The devas will not protect them.
When they are in the presence of holy beings,
They will be scared and feel regret for their mistakes.
Since humans and non-humans will examine them,
They will be able to quickly harm them.
They will be unable to find enjoyments without difficulties.
They also won’t achieve what they wish.
Those who keep pure morality
Will be praised by all the buddhas
And all their wishes will be fulfilled.
Apply what was explained before to them.
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.
The Eight Prayers is a collection of prayers which is commonly recited in the Gelug monastic communities for the recently deceased. King of Prayers, the extraordinary aspiration of the prayer of Samantabhadra, is commonly recited to bring benefit to those who are sick or have just passed away, and for the success of a virtuous project.
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