Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi, and Kopan Lama Gyupa monks reciting the Guhyasamaja root tantra on Lhabab Duchen, November 7, 2020, Kopan Monastery, Nepal. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

One of the four great holy days on the Buddhist calendar, Lhabab Duchen, took place this year on November 7. FPMT centers and students around the world took this opportunity to engage in meritorious activities as recommended by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. 

Rinpoche is still at Kopan Monastery in Nepal and he, along with the Sangha there, offered a variety of prayers and practices on the special occasion. 

Kopan Lama Gyupa monks created the sand mandala of Thirteen-Deity Yamantaka. They completed it the day before Lhabab Duchen. On Lhabab Duchen the monks do the Thirteen-Deity Yamantaka self initiation for three days. On the third day, they offered a peaceful fire puja and dismantled the sand mandala. The following day the sand went into the river. A naga puja followed. 

Thirteen-Deity Yamantaka sand mandala constructed by the Kopan Lama Gyupa monks.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Khen Rinpoche Geshe Thubten Chonyi, and the Lama Gyupa monks also recited Guhyasamaja Tantra in Lama Gyupa gompa at Kopan Monastery next to the beautiful Thirteen-Deity sand mandala. 

“The Guhyasamaja Tantra holds a special place in the tantric tradition. In the Root Tantra, in the section on the title, it states that every secret of the body, speech, and mind of every tathagata is contained within this tantra. Lama Tsongkhapa says just to read, study, or even come into contact with this tantra is of immense benefit, and that as long as the Guhyasamaja Tantra remains, the teachings of the Buddha remain also, because ‘it is the amulet carrying the Buddhadharma,’” Thubten Jinpa writes in the introduction to A Lamp to Illuminate the Five Stages by Lama Tsongkhapa.

Please enjoy this video of the recitation of the Guhyasamaja Tantra recitation including footage of the sand mandala:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P7s1gWZqI8

Extensive light offerings were also offered at the monastery in the evening.

“It is mentioned that if we make offerings of light or incense, do prostrations and so forth, we collect numberless great merits,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche said in Singapore in 2013, when discussing the benefits of offering light. “By making light offerings, you are able to dispel the darkness of ignorance and achieve wisdom. By offering light, you are never in darkness while you are circling in samsara. There will always be light. And offering light just one time to Buddha creates the karma to have great wealth for many hundreds or thousands of lifetimes. … [We also attain] a higher rebirth, in a pure land. We quickly achieve nirvana, and not only nirvana but also the great nirvana, enlightenment.”  

Please enjoy this short video of the offerings:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBSaIOWaj3k&feature=youtu.be

Rinpoche has advised that because merit is multiplied by 100 million on wheel-turning days, we need to “wake up” and not waste the opportunity by being distracted by worldly pleasures and worldly concerns.

Please rejoice in these meritorious practices completed on this holy occasion of Lhabab Duchen this year. May these and all the virtuous activities offered around the world on this special day be the cause for all beings to experience peace. 

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.

Watch the video series “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19” and find links to videos in translation, 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 giving advice to the nunnery staff, Khachoe Ghakyil Nunnery, Nepal, October 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:

Rinpoche begins this video continuing with his discussion of Phabongka Rinpoche’s commentary on the Three Principal Aspects of the Path by Lama Tsongkhapa. Rinpoche focuses this teaching on the two verses “The Reason to Meditate on the Right View” and “How to Ascertain the Right View.”

As Lama Tsongkhapa says, we should “strive in the method to realize dependent arising.” Rinpoche first talks about what is meant by “dependent arising.” The Vaibhashika, Sautrantika, and Chittamatra schools understand it in relation only to impermanent phenomena—arising in dependence on causes and conditions. The Madhyamaka Svatantrika’s understanding of dependent arising—arising in dependence on its parts—is a little bit better in that it applies to both permanent and impermanent phenomena. The Prasangika school’s understanding—arising in dependence on a valid base to be labeled and the valid concept that labels it—is much subtler than the views of the lower schools. 

Phagongkha Rinpoche explains in his commentary that subtle dependent arising is not in itself the method for realizing emptiness. Rather, the dependent arising of cause and effect, which is accepted by all the schools, should be taught first in order to protect the meditator from falling into nihilism and help them realize the Prasangika’s view of emptiness. For these reasons, it is extremely important to be guided and to guide others by presenting the dependent arising of cause and effect at the very beginning.

In regard to the causes of samsara, Rinpoche explains how the ignorance holding the “I” as real is the root of samsara. First, the “I” appears real to the hallucinated mind. Then, what is “mine”—the aggregates and so forth—appear as real, as well as all the rest of phenomena. From that, the three poisonous minds, which can be elaborated in the six root delusions, the twenty secondary delusions, and the 84,000 delusions, arise. These delusions then motivate the karmic actions that result in all the sufferings of the six-realm sentient beings. From this, you can understand the evolution of samsara through the twelve links of dependent arising.

On the other hand, in regard to the causes of nirvana, by meditating on true paths, you are able to achieve true cessations, and, with the support of bodhichitta, you can purify the subtle obscurations and achieve enlightenment. 

All these phenomena of samsara and nirvana are to be seen as unbetraying. Otherwise, you risk falling into nihilism, thinking that there are no causes and results, and therefore that it is not important to keep pure morality because actions do not have results.

After you realize that phenomena do not exist from their own side, you still have the hallucinated appearance of truly existent phenomena, but you know it is not true. Rinpoche explains that this is like a scarecrow, which appears to be a real person; a mirage, which appears to be real water; and the things that appear in dreams, which appear to be real things.

Only buddhas don’t have this hallucinated appearance because they no longer have the negative imprints left by delusion, the knowledge obscurations, that project the dualistic view. These have been removed by the direct remedy of the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness possessed by bodhichitta. This is the method to annihilate (zhig pa) the false appearances—not an atom is left of the hallucination. Rinpoche spends some time discussing the meaning of “zhig pa,” explaining why “destroy” isn’t quite the right translation, since we typically think of “destroying” as turning something whole into pieces. Rather it means the total annihilation or disappearance of something, in this case, the appearance of true existence. It is gone, with no trace left, when you realize the Prasangika’s view.

Rinpoche explains that what follows is for you to train your mind in seeing objects as not truly existent at all. While there is still the hallucinated appearance of true existence, you realize with full awareness that things don’t exist from their own side, not even an atom. You have to go through the very deep experience of realizing that the “I” you have been holding on to as real from beginningless rebirths isn’t there. If at that time you fear you are falling into nihilism, it becomes a great interference to your realization of emptiness. Therefore, let go, and allow yourself to go through the fear. 

The “I” exists, but only in mere name, Rinpoche explains. How the “I” exists is extremely subtle; so subtle it is as if it doesn’t exist at all. Whatever is happening, it is not true. As His Holiness has said, “What exists is something else” from what ordinary people believe.

Our mind has been habituated—like a waterfall, so heavily since beginningless rebirths—with ignorance. Everything that has appeared to us has appeared as truly existent—and you 100% believed it! From that, all the delusions, karma, and the oceans of suffering of hell beings, hungry ghosts, and animals arise. Everything appears real, but what is there is only existing in mere name. This is unbelievably subtle.

To counter this wrong habituation, we need to train in meditating on emptiness. Whatever you are doing, it should become a meditation on emptiness. Rinpoche emphasizes that it is not that you can only meditate on emptiness while you are sitting on a cushion! There are three ways that you can meditate on emptiness while going about your daily activities. 

1. Meditate on everything as a hallucination: In every activity you do, look at the “I,” action, and object as a total hallucination, as they are a total hallucination. Whatever you do—such as shopping, using the toilet, eating food, or going to work—transform it into a meditation on emptiness by looking at it as a hallucination or as like a dream. 

2. Meditate on everything as merely labeled: Another method to meditate on emptiness in daily life is to think that the merely labeled “I” is doing the actions of your day. For example, when you are eating, think that the merely labeled “I” is doing the merely labeled action of eating merely labeled food. 

3. Meditate on everything as empty of true existence: Whatever you are doing, meditate that the real “I” that is doing the activity is not there, the real action you are doing is not there, and the real object of your action is not there. They are all empty of true existence; they are not there at all.

Of these three meditations, do a different one each day, or each week, or each month. This is the way to develop a positive habituation with emptiness and counter the wrong habituation with holding everything as real. Whether you know a lot about emptiness or just a little, this daily meditation on emptiness is the most important thing to do. 

Rinpoche concludes the teaching by citing two verses from Aryadeva’s Four Hundred Stanzas on the Middle Way. If you destroy ignorance, you destroy the delusions. When you see dependent arising, ignorance doesn’t arise. Therefore, Rinpoche says we should try to realize the meaning of dependent arising. 

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 “Whatever You Are Doing, It Should Become Meditation on Emptiness”:
https://youtu.be/o3uW34o6TSQ

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• For more from Rinpoche on the object to be refuted, please see Recognizing the False I
• Find Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, and Russian
• Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings

Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 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/

Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”

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 at Khachoe Ghakyil Nunnery, Nepal, October 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:

Rinpoche begins this teaching explaining that this thought transformation (lojong) teaching series began due to the coronavirus pandemic. While the whole lamrim is lojong, there is also lojong practices within the lamrim, whereby any obstacle or misfortune is utilized in the path to enlightenment.

To begin, one first has to train in using small problems in the path to enlightenment and enjoying them for sentient beings. For a bodhisattva, the idea of achieving liberation for oneself alone is like used toilet paper—something to be thrown out, not something to be regarded as happiness, Rinpoche explains. Conversely, a bodhisattva experiences being born in hell for sentient beings as incredible happiness, like a swan entering a pond on a hot day.

In order to go beyond samsara and achieve enlightenment, the two wings of bodhichitta and right view—conventional bodhichitta and absolute bodhichitta, or method and wisdom—are needed. Rinpoche refers to Phabongkha Rinpoche’s commentary on Lama Je Tsongkhapa’s Three Principal Aspects of the Path, which emphasizes the Prasangika view as the correct understanding of right view. Rinpoche talks at some length about how one comes to understand right view, touching on the views of some of the early schools of Buddhism. He then discusses the importance of understanding the difference between the Madhyamaka Svatantrika and Madhyamaka Prasangika schools’ views, including the different meanings of the phrase “truly existent” and what the gag ja, or object to be refuted, is.

Rinpoche talks about how, according to Trehor Kyorpon Rinpoche, the ease or difficulty one has for realizing emptiness depends on how many imprints one’s mind has from reading and studying emptiness. Reading the Diamond Cutter Sutra or the Heart Sutra often, even without understanding the meaning of the words completely, leaves important imprints. So it is very important to read these sutras and receive the positive imprints. Without them, no matter how many lifetimes you try, you cannot be free from samsara. Also it takes time to realize emptiness. But so many people put the happiness of this life first, which leaves very little time to learn Dharma, and so realizations don’t happen.

Rinpoche refers to Phabongkha Rinpoche’s commentary where it explains how to apply Buddhist logic to the object to be refuted. From beginningless rebirths you have been holding the “I” as real and holding it as precious, cherishing it more than all the sentient beings, all the buddhas and bodhisattvas. You have been protecting this “real I” from every single harm and trying to get all happiness for it. When you realize that this “real I” is not there, then you see that there is nothing to hold on to. Upon achieving this insight, many students don’t realize that they are entering a critical point for understanding emptiness. If one becomes frightened and doesn’t carry the experience forward, one loses this important opportunity and nothing develops.

For higher intelligence beings, the recognition that the “real I” isn’t there causes incredible joy to arise, tears come to the eyes, and the body hairs stand on end. But for lower intelligence beings, this recognition can cause confusion and fear to arise; suddenly there is nothing to hold on to. It is a huge surprise, Rinpoche explains.

You have been working your whole life trying to get happiness for the “real I,” harming sentient beings in the process—putting others down, cheating others, telling lies, engaging in sexual misconduct, and even killing sentient beings. You have cheated yourself with your wrong concept, totally deceiving yourself from beginningless rebirths with this ignorance. Holding the “I” as real and as the most precious is the most frightening garbage, Rinpoche says. Worse than kaka! Kaka didn’t make you suffer since beginningless rebirths like cherishing the “real I” has. In fact, sometimes kaka can be useful, like to help vegetables grow.

So when you realize there is nothing to hold on to, no “real I,” you think you are falling into nihilism, thinking that nothing exists at all. That thought distracts the mind and interferes with realizing emptiness. However, Rinpoche says, the idea is to let go of the fear. It is like a river, you have to go through it, in order to cross it. Let the “I” be totally lost.

At the beginning you start to recognize your false concept about the “real I,” Rinpoche explains. Then you start to correct it. You meditate on dependent arising. You meditate that there is no “I” there. You discover that it is totally nonexistent from its own side. You see how it exists in mere name. You repeat this experience over and over many times everyday, and your realization becomes stronger. It is so unbelievably subtle, Rinpoche explains, and you think, “I am born in mere name. I am dead in mere name. I am old in mere name. I am sick in mere name. The ‘I’ is creating negative karma in mere name. I create good karma in mere name. I achieve enlightenment in mere name. I experience hell in mere name. I experience samsara and nirvana in mere name.”

Everything is there, but it is as if it doesn’t exist, like a dream. There is an “I,” but it is totally empty. It is there but it is as if it doesn’t exist. This is soooooo subtle. Otherwise, if it doesn’t exist at all, you don’t need to keep morality, you don’t need to follow discipline. When you have fear of falling into nihilism, you must go through it. Then you will see you are the most fortunate to have this experience of emptiness, realizing how the “I” is empty.

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 “Holding the I as Real and the Most Precious Is the Most Frightening Garbage”:
https://youtu.be/0oaZgYwzKqQ

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• For more from Rinpoche on the object to be refuted, please see Recognizing the False I
• Find Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, and Russian
• Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings

Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 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/

Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”

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.

Hayagriva tsog kong puja offered at Kopan Monastery on October 26, 2020, for the long life of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and all beings, Nepal

Following the advice of Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drolma (Khadro-la), a Most Secret Hayagriva tsog kong puja was offered at Kopan Monastery in Nepal on October 26 for Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s long life. In addition, this puja was dedicated for the health and success of the entire FPMT organization, an end to the COVID-19 pandemic, and for a number of individuals and geshes within the organization who were specifically advised to have this puja done for life obstacles.

Hayagriva tsog kong torma.

This is the third Hayagriva tsog kong offered at Kopan Monastery, following the advice of Khadro-la for pujas needed to remove obstacles to Rinpoche’s health in 2020. Hayagriva is the wrathful manifestation of Chenrezig, the Buddha of Compassion. This puja is very powerful as a means for removing obstacles and generating merit, and is very important for FPMT, due to the organization’s close connection with the deity as this is FPMT’s main protector.

Please enjoy this short video of various scenes from this powerful puja:
https://youtu.be/APW_NSlxn54

Lama Zopa Rinpoche attended this puja as well as Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi, the Lama Gyupas, and senior monks of Kopan Monastery. The puja took many hours with extensive prayers and meditation, and elaborate tormas were made by the Kopan Lama Gyupas and offered within the puja.

Please rejoice in the successful completion of this third Hayagriva tsog kong for Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s long life, the removal of obstacles and creation of merit for the entire FPMT organization, the end of the coronavirus pandemic, and the benefit of all beings.

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.

Every month, the Puja Fund sponsors about 40 of the most senior monks of Sera Je Monastery, who specialize in this practice, to offer the Extensive Most Secret Hayagriva Puja for the success and longevity of the entire FPMT organization. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Khachoe Ghakyil Nunnery, Nepal, October 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:

Rinpoche begins this video by advising on the proper motivation for listening to the teachings. One should think the following:

The real purpose of my life is to benefit sentient beings. In order to benefit others, I must stop harming them. Then, I will free them from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to full enlightenment, the total cessation of gross and subtle obscurations, and completion of realizations. I will do this by myself alone. In order to accomplish this, I must achieve the state of omniscience. Therefore, I will listen to these teachings on thought transformation, lojong.

Rinpoche then discusses the thousands of animals that are sacrificed during the annual Dashain festival in Nepal, which includes three days of animal sacrifices and which was occuring during the teaching.

Rinpoche asks, How can we expect peace in the world when activities like this continue? Animals are killed every day for people’s pleasure. If sentient beings are continually harmed like this, how can we expect peace? Animals can’t speak, and even if they make noise, people don’t understand them. The people who harm animals intentionally don’t know Dharma. They don’t know that these animals need happiness too and that they don’t want suffering. You can observe that the animals don’t like it, but people continue anyway.

When natural disasters occur, people are surprised, as if there is no cause. But people create the cause. If you explain this, people who don’t know Dharma will think you are crazy. From the side of those who do understand Dharma, worldly behavior is crazy because it causes so much suffering for the self and others.

Rinpoche explains that the merit generated from these teachings is to be dedicated for all those animals who are killed during the Dashain festival.

To generate bodhichitta, you first need to develop strong compassion, like that of a mother for her beloved son who has fallen into a fire pit. Each second that passes while the son is in the fire is too long for her. She can’t stand it even for a second. That’s one example. You should feel like that about the numberless mother sentient beings that are suffering right now in the lower realms. And think, for this reason, for the sake of all of those beings, I must achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible. Once your mind is filled with this motivation effortlessly, you have the realization of bodhichitta.

Rinpoche explains why you meditate on the “right view.” Lama Tsongkhapa said in Three Principal Aspects of the Path:

Without the wisdom realizing ultimate reality,
Even though you have generated renunciation and the mind of enlightenment
You cannot cut the root cause of circling.
Therefore, attempt the method to realize dependent arising.

Phabongkha Rinpoche explained in his commentary on this verse that if you don’t have the wisdom realizing ultimate nature, even if your mind is trained in renunciation and bodhichitta, it cannot cut the root of samsara. Therefore, “attempt the method to realize dependent arising.”

There are many things that people think is meditation on emptiness, but it is not. This is why you have to analyze what you are practicing to determine if it is correct or not. Otherwise, your main practice may never become the remedy for samsara.

To liberation sentient beings from samsara, first you need to find the right view that cuts the root of samsara. Without the view realizing that there is “no self,” you cannot even lessen the delusions. In order to eradicate the root of samsara, ignorance holding the “I,” you definitely need the right view of non-self, no self. Nothing else can pacify delusion, which is cause of cycling in samsara.

To achieve liberation you need to abandon holding the real “I.” In order to abandon that, you need to meditate on the path of no self, which becomes the antidote to the ignorance of apprehending (holding) the “I.” Your practices of charity, morality, and so forth on their own won’t cause you to achieve this realization. Without meditating on no self, you won’t achieve nirvana, liberation.

To achieve liberation from samsara, you need method as well as wisdom. Bodhichitta and right view are necessary to achieve the qualities of a buddha. Bodhichitta is the method, and the complete right view is wisdom. When method and wisdom are separated, you cannot achieve enlightenment. This is like a bird that needs two wings to fly over the ocean.

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 Reasons You Need to Meditate on the Right View”:
https://youtu.be/jZZA_ZD_Plo

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• Find Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, and Russian
• Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings

Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 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/

Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”

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 at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, September 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:

Rinpoche begins by asking, “What is the purpose of your life? And why do you do the things you do in your life?”

Rinpoche shares many examples to explain the inconceivable merit generated by studying, having faith in, writing out, printing, offering to others, reciting, or teaching on the Prajnaparamita, the perfection of wisdom. Even if one keeps righteous effort of body, speech, and mind, and keeps morality stainless for eons—hearing just one word about emptiness and generating faith in the Prajnamaraita teachings generates far more merit than that.

Further, Rinpoche explains, if you personally cause as many sentient beings as there are in the River Ganga to subdue their minds, actualize the path, cease all gross delusions and karma—to cause all those sentient beings to become arhats—far more merit than that is created by writing out Prajnaparamita texts, printing them for others, keeping them and making offerings to them, teaching Prajnaparamita to others, or listening to those teachings. If one filled up ten million universes with stupas made of seven types of jewels, the merit created by that is no comparison to the merit generated by writing down, creating texts of, and making offerings to the Prajnaparamita teachings. You create far more merit by hearing the Prajnaparamita sutra called the Diamond Cutter Sutra and never giving up faith in its teachings than by making charity of your body many hundred thousand times. Even reading every day from the Diamond Cutter Sutra, the Heart Sutra, the Prajnaparamita sutras, and so forth, or from Praise to the Buddha for Revealing Dependent Arising—the merit of that is unbelievable. Wow, wow, wow, wow!

The less dangerous and more protected way to meditate on emptiness, the correct way, Rinpoche explains, is to meditate on dependent arising—not only gross, but subtle. Meditating on this helps to lead one to the Prasangika’s subtle view of emptiness. When you meditate on the meaning of dependent arising, you are protected from falling into nihilism or eternalism.

Similar to what is said in the Heart Sutra, “Form is empty, emptiness is form,” by meditating on the emptiness of “I” you come to the conclusion that “’I’ is empty, emptiness is ‘I.’” By “empty” this means it does not exist from its own side. Understanding this eliminates eternalism. Not even an atom of what appears exists from its own side. What you believe is totally nonexistent. That which is empty, that is the “I.” There is no real “I,” it is merely labeled, a mental projection. Not only the “I” exists in mere name, everything exists in mere name, including samsara, suffering, everything. We hold on to the totally opposite view, which is a hallucination. That which is empty from its own side and existing in mere name is unified with dependent arising, not separate. So emptiness manifests in dependent arising, dependent arising manifests in emptiness.

The “I” which is empty, exists in mere name, merely labeled by the mind, but there is valid base. The aggregates exist, so the base to be labeled exists, so the “I” that is labeled also exists. So, I is empty, but it is not completely nonexistent. This is true with all the functions: creating merit in mere name, creating negative karma in mere name, experiencing happiness in mere name, experiencing suffering in mere name, experiencing samsara in mere name, experiencing nirvana in mere name, experience hell and the lower realms in mere name, experiencing enlightenment in mere name. This is very important to understand, how the “I” exists. It exists in mere name, merely labeled by the valid mind, because there is a valid base, valid aggregates. So it exists, but only in mere name. Understanding this stops nihilism, which says nothing exists at all.

The teachings on how the “I” is empty and how it exists in mere name shows the middle way, Madhyamaka. Only the correct realization of this according to the Prasangika view can eliminate the root of your samsara, ignorance. As the “I” appeared to you as existing from its own side, your hallucinated mind holds on to that and believes in it 100%. So you want to eliminate this. It is where all the suffering comes from—headache, diarrhea, depression—everything comes from ignorance, the wrong view. Only the Prasangika view can eliminate the ignorance that is the root of samsara. That’s why it is important to understand the Prasangika view—to learn and to meditate on this is so important.

Rinpoche discusses how the Chittamatra, or “Mind Only,” view says that nothing exists without depending on the imprints left on the consciousness, from which both subject and object arise. And how the Svatantrika view is that nothing truly exists without the mind labeling it, but still from the object’s side, it exists. Rinpoche explains how the Prasangika (correct) view is that the “I” exist in mere name, which is so so subtle. 

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 “‘I Is Empty, Emptiness Is I’ Shows the Meaning of ‘Dependent Arising'”:
https://youtu.be/wJ8A_neBG8s

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• Find links to the Heart Sutra, the Diamond Cutter Sutra, and other sutras 
• Find Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, and Russian
• Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings

Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 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/

Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”

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.

Rinpoche giving a teaching on chod practice, having also done a tea offering practice on the hill with senior Kopan monks, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, October 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:

Rinpoche begins this teaching reminding us that we will continue to suffer if we never make preparation for tomorrow’s happiness. Worldly people don’t see that—they only think of happiness now, only think of this life and don’t make preparation for the happiness of tomorrow, next month, next year, and certainly not for the next life. So the suffering continues.

When karma ripens, you must experience what you have created, no matter how much you don’t like it. This is why we have to be careful not to create negative causes and conditions. In order to avoid this, we have to practice Dharma. Not worldly Dharma, holy Dharma. Practicing Dharma doesn’t mean sitting on the meditation cushion or doing prayers all day long. It means renouncing this life. Even to be poor externally isn’t the main objective. It is to renounce attachment, the three poisonous minds, and the self-cherishing thought that is the root of samsara. This is renouncing where all the problems come from—all the attachment to this life, all the emotions. That is the first Dharma. If you don’t know how to practice Dharma, you won’t give up attachment to this life.

Even to achieve liberation from samsara forever is not the real meaning of human life. The real meaning of a human life is to abstain from harming sentient beings and only benefit them—to cause happiness and free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings. To do this, you have to know what Dharma is. 

Every day you have to remember to stop harming sentient beings. If they harm, don’t harm back. You only benefit and bring every sentient being to peerless happiness, the total cessation of gross and subtle obscurations, and completion of all realizations. To do this you need to achieve the state of omniscience. Therefore, you listen to the teachings.

Practicing lojong means you transform your suffering mind into a happy mind all the time.

You collect great merit by listening to teachings on emptiness, teaching emptiness to others, and meditating on emptiness. You also collect great merit by writing out and reading the Prajnaparamita. Rinpoche and others are writing out the Prajnaparamita in pure gold. Monks in the monasteries memorize the Prajnaparamita so they can easily bring Dharma to the world. It is very skillful to utilize the opportunity of holy merit-multiplying days by writing out and printing sutras.

Kyabje Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche said the best practice is studying Prajnaparamita, Rinpoche explains. Then there are the middle preliminary practices of reading Gyetongpa one hundred times and the smaller nine preliminary practices of refuge, prostrations, Vajrasattva, mandala offerings, and so forth. Many people might think that studying and doing preliminary practice are separate—that studying is not really purifying the mind and collecting merits. So then you think the mandala offerings you do are separate. It is not like that. You have to recognize that by studying Prajnaparamita you are doing the best preliminary practice. You have to know that. Those who are studying the FPMT Education Basic Program and Masters Program have to know this.

Even if you doubt that things exist from their own side and think things might be empty—this already shakes your samsara. To have even a little faith in the teachings on emptiness is so fortunate. And if you have faith in the Diamond Cutter Sutra—wow! You collect more merit than making charity of your own body! By writing these texts, reading them, memorizing them, keeping them, and then of course actualizing the meaning and revealing to others—wow! Inconceivable merits. The place where you read these sutras becomes holy. It becomes like a stupa! Can you imagine those who memorize many texts on the teachings of emptiness? They can recite in the car, on top of Mount Everest, anywhere they are! Even memorizing one verse and teaching others—this is easy to do and creates so much merit. Even wishing to receive teachings on emptiness purifies negative karma. Just the wish to realize that nothing exists from its own side—this alone … inconceivable benefit. Just listening to the meaning of dependent-arising starts to liberate you from oceans of samsaric suffering. There is no question if you are writing, making offerings or prostrations to the text, or memorizing—unbelievable merits you collect. You purify the heavy negative karma and downfalls.

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 Even a Little Faith in Emptiness Is So Fortunate”:
https://youtu.be/qBFfWwB6WoE

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• Find Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, and Russian
• Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings

Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 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/

Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”

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 at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, September 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:

Rinpoche begins this teaching discussing how millions of people in the West suffer from depression and that some sadly died by suicide. Rinpoche suggests this is because they don’t have meaning in their lives and they haven’t met the teachings of Buddha, so they don’t know how to live life. When one doesn’t have a heart understanding of reincarnation and karma, one doesn’t know that even though the body stops, the mind continues. According to their incomplete knowledge, a depressed person may believe that when they die, they are finished and don’t exist, and therefore, they no longer suffer from their problems. But that is a mistaken view.

Also, if someone has problems with attachment, the self-cherishing mind, anger, and so forth, then spirits can connect with those problems and invade the person’s mind, Rinpoche explains. Then they don’t know that spirits are influencing their thoughts. So you have to question your thoughts and analyze your decisions—ask, “Why am I doing this?” Otherwise there can be danger to yourself; you can become your own enemy. But with analysis and logic, you can help yourself. When you practice Dharma, especially when you practice bodhichitta, you become a guide to yourself, your own guru. Then you can generate the path.

Because of the virus, Rinpoche explains, he has been discussing lojong, thought transformation. Sentient beings experience so much suffering—depression; the suffering of old age, sickness, death, and rebirth; the suffering of not finding a desirable object or finding an undesirable object; and the suffering of change, that what you believe to be pleasure doesn’t last. We think that we stop one suffering and replace it with pleasure, only to have another suffering emerge, and so on. This is called samsaric pleasure. So you need to analyze and understand that what you label “pleasure” comes from your mind and that it is suffering. Desire and craving bind you to samsara. From beginningless rebirths we have been doing this; your attachment and desire have cheated you. Samsaric pleasures cause you to be reborn into oceans of samsaric suffering.

Because our aggregates are totally under the control of karma and delusion, we experience pervasive compounding suffering. And that is why Buddha has shown the four noble truths. Buddha taught how to get rid of the cause of suffering, which is delusion and karma. The teachings of the Buddha—this philosophy, lamrim is its essence—explain this in detail. This is why one must study—not just meditate, but study the teachings.

All the sufferings in the world, including depression, come from the ignorance that believes that the “I” exists from its own side. Since beginningless rebirths, your hallucinated mind has had this mistaken belief of how the “I” exists. Rinpoche then explains the Prasangika view of the object to be refuted, which is an understanding of how the extremely subtle mind relates to the merely labeled “I,” and how it doesn’t exist at all from its own side.

When you recognize the extremely subtle object to be refuted, when you recognize that what you thought existed from its own side is false, Rinpoche explains, the object to be refuted doesn’t go anywhere, but while you are holding it, you recognize that it is not there. For lower intelligence beings, this recognition is a huge shock because they have been believing the wrong view since beginningless rebirths. For higher intelligence bodhisattvas, tears of unbelievable happiness come.

But even if you have the experience of understanding how things truly exist, if you don’t meditate and don’t have realizations, then outside objects control your mind and the experience goes away. This is why you can’t manage when life changes. You aren’t able to practice Dharma, you aren’t able to control your mind, and outside objects control you. The clouds of delusions come and there is so much suffering.

Buddha revealed how to realize emptiness. If you meditate well on dependent arising, your realization of emptiness becomes correct. Everything that exists is merely labeled by the mind because there is a valid base. Therefore, nothing exists from its own side. Many meditators who don’t have the karma and extensive merits to realize this fall into nihilism and think that nothing exists at all.

Rinpoche concludes by explaining that there are extensive benefits to meditating on dependent arising and emptiness. 

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 Root of All the Suffering in the World Is Ignorance“:
https://youtu.be/wognV3ndrOA

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching 
• For more from Rinpoche on the object to be refuted, please see Recognizing the False I
• Find Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, and Russian
• Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings

Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 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/

Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”

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 on chod practice, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, September 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:

Rinpoche begins this teaching explaining that the Sutra of Great Liberation is exactly what we need to hear now when there is so much danger in the world, including famine, disease, the virus, and so many problems. Just by hearing it, one doesn’t get reborn in the lower realms and it becomes easy to be reborn in a pure land, easy to achieve enlightenment, easy to be free from samsara—there are skies of benefits. 

Rinpoche then offers a brief motivation for continuing to listen to the oral transmission of the Sutra of Great Liberation: 

The purpose of listening is not just to achieve liberation for oneself. That is not sufficient. It is not the purpose of life as a human being. You must not harm others. You must only benefit and cause happiness for them. There are numberless hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, suras, and asuras. Every single happiness you have experienced since beginningless rebirths comes from them, including every ant you see on the road, mosquito flying around, person you don’t like, person who hates you—yes, even your enemy—every happiness comes from them. Numberless buddhas, Dharma, Sangha—they all came from every hell being, every hungry ghost, every animal, every human being, every sura and asura, every bug that bites you. So who you take refuge in—Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—they came from every sentient being, so every sentient being is so precious and so kind.

The purpose of listening is to free all sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings, to bring them to enlightenment—the total cessation of obscurations and the completion of realizations. To do this by yourself alone, you need to achieve the state of omniscience. For this reason, you need to actualize the path, purify obscurations, and collect merits. So therefore, this is why you listen to the teachings, to this oral transmission. 

Rinpoche continues the oral transmission and commentary on the Sutra of Great Liberation at 0:08:22 in this video. 

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 “Anyone Who Listens to ‘Sutra of Great Liberation’ Gets the Most Unbelievable Merits”:
https://youtu.be/FQZ3kS3SAV8

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• Find Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, and Russian
• Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings

Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 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/

Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”

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 at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, September 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

After a two week pause of giving video teachings, during which time Rinpoche gave teachings to the nuns at Khachoe Ghakyil Ling Nunnery and the monks at Kopan Monastery, Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues with his Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:

Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teachings discussing how this virus has made it possible for this teaching series to be accessible anywhere in the world. Before, so many resources were spent on the side of Rinpoche and also the students for travel to the teachings. But due to the virus the teachings are made very accessible. Anyone can listen to the recorded teachings anywhere in the world. In this way, unfavorable conditions became a beneficial support.

As His Holiness has explained that when Tibet was lost, it became a condition for the spreading of Dharma in the world, due to His Holiness traveling so extensively. People in so many countries were able to attend His Holiness’ teachings and learn about Buddhism.

The topic of this teaching series has been lojong, thought transformation. The whole lamrim is lojong, but there is also “lamrim lojong,” specific practices given in the lamrim teachings.

Rinpoche explains that so far the focus of his teachings in this series has been the foundation of lojong, the foundational teaching of how to realize emptiness by utilizing unfavorable and miserable conditions on the path to enlightenment. And also how even when you are happy, you can make that experience useful to achieve enlightenment.

By hearing about subjects that are the foundation of lojong—such as impermanence and death, renunciation, the preciousness of life, the opportunity of a perfect human rebirth, and so forth—this gives you energy and courage to practice. Rinpoche explains that all of these fundamental teachings become a commentary on this verse from Shanitdeva’s Bodhicharyavatara (v. 5.17):

“If someone doesn’t know the supreme principal Dharma,
The secrecy of the mind,
Even if they desire to achieve happiness and eliminate suffering,
They will wander without purpose in samsara.”

Rinpoche explains that, according to a commentary by Gyaltshab Je, “secrecy of the mind” does not refer to emptiness but to the motivations of the three capable beings—lower capable beings, middle capable beings, and higher capable beings. That motivation is holy Dharma. It is not worldly Dharma, Rinpoche emphasizes, but holy Dharma.

If you don’t have a Dharma motivation, no matter how much you desire to achieve happiness and eliminate suffering, day and night, you are constantly creating nonvirtue with your body, speech, and mind. If you have a human body but you do not have a good heart, then you are no different than an animal looking only for what they want to make themselves happy without the thought of benefiting others. A person can have a degree from the University of Oxford or Harvard University, but if someone harms them and they harm back then that way of thinking is no different than the thinking of mosquitoes, snakes, or tigers. 

Without knowing and practicing the secrecy of the mind, without having a holy Dharma motivation, even if you know the whole Kangyur and Tengyur by heart, you won’t make progress. Not thinking of benefiting sentient beings has kept us wandering in samsara since beginningless rebirths. Seeking happiness for the self-cherishing thought has kept us trapped in the lower realms and samsara. 

Then Rinpoche continues with the oral transmission and commentary of the Sutra of Great Liberation. Rinpoche first gives instruction on the correct motivation for listening to the oral transmission and commentary.

The purpose of life is not to just avoid the lower realms and receive a higher rebirth, or to be free from the oceans of samsaric suffering forever. The main purpose of life is to achieve full enlightenment, buddhahood, the total cessation of gross and subtle obscurations and the completion of realizations, for all sentient beings. This is for every single sentient being—including every hell being; every hungry ghost; every animal such as tiny insects, dogs, goats, birds, etc.; every single human being including those speaking different languages in different countries, those who are your enemy, friends, or strangers, those who are your parents, brothers, sisters; and every sura and asura. Your purpose is to free them from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment, to buddhahood, by yourself alone. Therefore, you are listening to the teachings, listening to the oral transmission of Sutra of Great Liberation, for this purpose.

The world is so full of problems, including contagious diseases, wars, fighting, and disasters of the elements such as landslides, typhoons, tornadoes, and fires. The Sutra of Great Liberation is exactly what you need at this dangerous time. (The oral transmission begins at 0:41:16 in the video.)

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 “‘Sutra of Great Liberation’ Is Exactly What Is Needed at This Dangerous Time”:
https://youtu.be/bszHIss9wF0

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• Find Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, and Russian.
• Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings

Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 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/

Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”

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 Sangha and newly ordained Sangha, Nalanda Monastery, France, June 2019. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche often highlights the importance of ordained Sangha along with the importance of Sangha in the West. Here’s an excerpt from Rinpoche teaching on this topic at Maitreya Instituut in The Netherlands in 2015:

From the side of the monk and the nun in the West, it is an unbelievable practice to dedicate onself to living in one’s ordination vows; it is great, great, great. It takes great courage, it is a great challenge, but it is so worthwhile.

Being Sangha in the West, being an ordained person in the West, is a billion times better than being in the Olympics. I must say it loudly! I must announce it loudly! It’s a billion, zillion, trillion times better than the Olympics or the World Cup. The world thinks that those things are so important, but it’s like a one-year-old baby playing, you understand? When I was a child in Solu Khumbu, where there is water and sand to play with, I would build something and say, “That is my house.” And some other children would destroy it, then I would cry, “Oh, my house!” Looking at the reality of life from the Dharma point of view, the Olympics and the World Cup are like child’s play.

In the West, when you win at the Olympics or World Cup you become famous in the world, you become like a god to young people; after you win at soccer the young people take you to be like a god.

Being ordained in the West, a monk and nun who is practicing—not ordained for political reasons or changing just the outside, or to get money, for example—really practicing Dharma, keeping the vows, whether it is for your own ultimate happiness, liberation, or for others who are numberless, is a billion, zillion, trillion times more important challenge than the Olympics or World Cup.

In reality it is like this, you understand?

The laypeople—and the Sangha themselves—must know that the Sangha practicing in the West are great champions. They are like an army going towards the enemy, who are carrying swords, carrying all the weapons to destroy them. They run towards the enemy to overcome them—the oceans of samsaric sufferings of the hells, the oceans of suffering of human beings, the oceans of suffering of the suras, the preta beings, asuras, animals.

Even living in vows just for yourself, for your own happiness, ultimate happiness—without even talking about enlightenment for sentient beings—you must realize you are a champion, a champion, you should realize that. You are a billion, zillion, trillion, numberless times more of a champioin than those who win the Olympics or World Cup; you must know that, feel that.

It is very, very important for the ordained Sangha to be strong in their Dharma practice; your mind practicing Dharma has to be strong—especially when lay people don’t appreciate it. That is how to enjoy life as Sangha.

It’s the same for lay people who are doing retreat and practicing Dharma, but especially for the Sangha. They are living in ordination in order to defeat delusions, you understand? To defeat delusions, the cause of samsara, to overcome them. It’s a huge difference, wow, wow, wow. You understand? You have to see the difference. The Sangha lead a very simple life, in a dedicated way, very renounced, in order to overcome delusion; what he or she practices is this.

We have been suffering from beginningless rebirths, beginningless rebirths, you understand? Suffering in the oceans of hell realms, human beings, six realms without beginning, can you imagine? The ordained Sangha, their practice is to overcome the causes of samsara, delusions and karma, you understand? You have to know that.

If people—the Sangha and lay people—just think that Sangha are simply changing from lay dress to Sangha dress, cutting the hair and changing the robe, then life has no meaning. You have to know why you become Sangha, you have to remember that. That is why I said the Olympics is nothing; all the things that worldly people think are so huge are nothing; they’re just child’s play. By following those you’re just being a servant to delusion, a total slave to delusion.

You have to understand that having met the Dharma and practicing Dharma—for lay people but especially Sangha—is a big, huge decision in life. Wow, wow, wow! It is not just a simple thing.

Colophon: Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching on respect for Sangha in the West, at Maitreya Instituut, The Netherlands, July 15–16, 2015. Edited by Ven. Robina Courtin, August 19, 2020. Lightly edited for publication on FPMT.org

Watch the video series “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19” and find links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/announcements/resources-for-coronavirus-pandemic/advice-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche-for-coronavirus/

Learn more about the nuns and monks of FPMT:
https://fpmt.org/centers/sangha/

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.

Rinpoche blessing and reciting mantras for two goats that had just been saved from the butcher and now live at the Animal Liberation Sanctuary, Khachoe Ghakyil Ling (Kopan Nunnery), July 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Patience: A Guide to Shantideva’s Sixth Chapter is a new book of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings on the perfection of patience, a topic Rinpoche has taught on extensively. (Perhaps this is not surprising since Rinpoche’s name “Zopa” means “patience.”) In this book, recently released by Wisdom Publications, Rinpoche gives commentary on the verses on patience in Shantideva’s A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. Here’s an excerpt from the chapter “When We Respect Sentient Beings, We Respect the Buddhas”:

Compassion for all sentient beings with the exception of one—the one we consider our enemy—is not great compassion, and without great compassion bodhichitta and enlightenment are impossible. Great compassion entails not only the wish for all sentient beings to be free from all suffering but also the determination that we ourselves will free them. This great compassion therefore relies on each and every sentient being: every hell being, hungry ghost, animal, human, demigod, god, and intermediate-state being. It includes our friends and those we consider strangers, but it also includes our enemies.

Shantideva compared the “field” of sentient beings to a buddha field. Because farmers rely on their fields of crops to earn their living, they take very good care of them—watering them, fertilizing them, protecting them from frost, and so forth. They think their crops are extremely precious. In exactly the same way, if we use the field of sentient beings to plant the thoughts of loving-kindness, compassion, and bodhichitta, we reap the crop of full enlightenment.

When we understand that all sentient beings are the field from which we receive all happiness, up to and including enlightenment, we will naturally want to take the best possible care of them, serving them in whatever way is best to repay their kindness. Even if we must give up our life—even if we must give up our life numberless times—there is still no way we can repay that kindness.

At present, we respect the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha and make offerings to them, because it is through relying on their guidance that we can attain enlightenment. When we understand that we equally need to rely on all sentient beings to obtain buddhahood, through practicing the six perfections with them, we will see that we should also respect and make offerings to them in the same way we do with the Three Rare Sublime Ones. Of course, the buddhas’ qualities are inexpressible and their intentions for us are unimaginable, and this is certainly not so for sentient beings. But, as Shantideva said, even though they are not equal in their qualities, they are equal in the results we obtain from them, so why do we not equally revere them?

To attain bodhichitta, we need to create an immense amount of merit through practices such as making offerings to holy objects. How could we make such offerings if it weren’t for sentient beings? Even a tiny stick of incense or a few grains of rice have come from the work of others. When we fly above a great city at night and see the millions of lights, these are an excellent offering to the buddhas, but who created all those lights? Sentient beings. If there were no sentient beings, there would be nothing to offer the buddhas. And there would be no buddhas, because they became buddhas by relying on the field of sentient beings.

Sentient beings are the foundation of our practice of generosity and morality, the cause of this perfect human rebirth. They are the foundation of our entire happiness, including enlightenment. They are our merit field, allowing us to create infinite merit by serving them. In that way, they are so kind. We cannot point to one sentient being who is kinder than any other. The whole path depends on all sentient beings. Paying respect to sentient beings is the same as paying respect to the buddhas and bodhisattvas. If we help sentient beings, that is the best offering to the buddhas and bodhisattvas. If we take care of sentient beings, we take care of the buddhas and bodhisattvas.

When we work for sentient beings, we work for the buddhas and bodhisattvas, because that is all that they are ever doing. There is not one flea, one mosquito, one hell being, one god, one spirit that all buddhas and bodhisattvas, with their infinite wisdom and compassion, are not ceaselessly and tirelessly working for. When we save the life of that flea, we are doing the work of a buddha. When we cherish that angry person, we are doing the work of a buddha, because that is what the buddhas and bodhisattvas do. They cherish every being more than themselves. If we are unable to do that yet, by aspiring to and working toward that, we are pleasing all the buddhas and bodhisattvas.

When we understand the incredible kindness of sentient beings, we can develop loving-kindness and compassion for them. We can see that the only thing they want is happiness and to avoid all suffering, but while they are deluded there is no way they can attain even a little temporal happiness. And yet they are the source of all our past, present, and future happiness, including our eventual enlightenment. This is the main point we should feel in our heart.

Regardless of whether a sentient being loves us, we should sincerely wish them happiness from our heart, with a mind like clear water, unhindered by attachment or other emotional minds that cloud it. With such an attitude, no matter what they do to us, that mind of lovingkindness and compassion does not budge. The deep peace we get from them is something we couldn’t get from all the wealth in the world.

Excerpted from Patience: A Guide to Shantideva’s Sixth Chapter by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, edited by Gordon McDougall, published by Wisdom Publications (WisdomExperience.org).

Watch the video series “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19” and find links to videos in translation, 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.