Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice

Lama Zopa Rinpoche enjoying a park in Madrid, Spain, April 2019. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche taught on how everything we receive, even the motivation of bodhichitta, comes through the kindness of other sentient beings during teachings given at Amitabha Buddhist Centre in Singapore in September 2018. Lama Zopa Rinpoche explained why and how all happiness comes from good karma and how good karma comes from the buddhas. He continued by explaining how we can stop rebirth in the lower realms and how the insight on the kindness of all sentient beings makes us want to repay their kindness. Here’s an excerpt from the teaching:

What makes life most beneficial to numberless sentient beings, the happiest life, is bodhichitta, living life with bodhichitta—the happiest life, no regret now and no regret in the future. It’s the happiest life, if you want to know.

With bodhichitta when you get sick, you are sick for sentient beings. You are so happy, unbelievably happy, even [if you have] cancer. Having sickness for sentient beings—with bodhichitta you are dying, dying for sentient beings—you are so happy. Anything, whatever happens to you, incurable disease, whatever, you are so happy; you experience it for sentient beings. It is the best, best life. So like that.

Whatever you are doing, you do for numberless sentient beings, including not only those who are helping you, even for those who don’t do harm or don’t help, even a stranger. When you generate bodhichitta, it is for everyone. There is no partisanship—you do if for some sentient beings, but some sentient beings you hate and you don’t do it for them. No, you do for everyone, so it is fantastic.

If you live life with bodhichitta, then you see that whatever happens to your life, it is for sentient beings—even if you have cancer, it is for sentient beings; even if you have health, it is for sentient beings; even if you have short life, it is for sentient beings; even if you have a long life it is for sentient beings—everything. [Living life with bodhichitta creates a] most happy, most happy life. Even if you have constant problems in this life, a difficult life, it is for sentient beings. There is nothing for you; it is all for sentient beings, numberless sentient beings, including your friends, strangers, enemies, everyone. It is really wonderful—wow, wow, wow, most wonderful life.

So, you see, there is incredible happiness. Your mind is always full of happiness, nothing involved with self-cherishing thoughts—only me, me, me. No, there is no problem with that, even though from beginningless rebirths, it has been like this—me, me, me, day and night, me, me, me, When I can be happy?, When I can be happy?, When I can be free from problems?—with the self-cherishing thought trying to achieve happiness for yourself. From beginningless rebirths, today is not the first time. We have been doing this from beginningless rebirths, still not complete, still not, so like that. …

Watch the teaching from which this excerpt is taken:
https://youtu.be/WRgkM2NVtUo

Colophon: Excerpted from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings in Singapore, September 19, 2018. Simultaneously transcribed by Ven. Joan Nicell. Lightly edited by Laura Miller, June 2019.

Find more video of Rinpoche teaching at Amitabha Buddhist Centre in Singapore:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/amitabha-buddhist-center-2018/

Watch recorded video of Rinpoche’s recent teachings from the Vajrayogini retreat at Institut Vajra Yogini in France:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/vajrayogini-retreat-2019/

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 Vajrayogini retreat, Institut Vajra Yogini, May 2019. Photo by Tsanka Petkova.

The five-week Vajrayogini retreat with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, hosted by Institut Vajra Vogini in the south of France, draws to a close on Saturday, June 15. FPMT students from around the world are attending the retreat. (Read a report from the first two weeks here.) Gordon McDougall, a long-time student of Rinpoche and frequent editor of Rinpoche’s books, is at Institut Vajra Yogini and shares this report:

Now we are into the final week of the five-week Vajrayogini retreat, it’s hard to know what to say about such a powerful event. Certainly the joy when it was announced that Lama Zopa would stay until the end of the retreat and give an Amitayus initiation was universal, but retreats are very personal affairs, meaning different things to each retreatant. There does seem to have been a fair mixture of ecstasy and agony, lots of colds, and even a few hospitalizations, but the overall atmosphere has been one of great joy and harmony.

So, how to sum it up? Perhaps it can be concentrated into four words:

amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing

Amazing is the place itself. Forty years of love and blessings have turned Institut Vajra Yogini into a wonderful space. The glorious chateau, the awe-inspiring stupa, the lovely walks through the wood to the ridge overlooking the quintessential French countryside—the superlatives can go on.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche being led by Institut Vajra Yogini director François Lecointre and Geshe Loden, resident geshe, Institut Vajra Yogini, France, May 2019. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Amazing too is the event provided by the staff of Vajra Yogini. Over forty volunteers made our job of meditating so much easier (but still not easy). It’s impossible to exaggerate the loving care they have taken with every tiny detail of the retreat. At every turn there is a reminder of how they have anticipated a retreatant’s needs and wishes, from qi gong sessions to tablet recharging areas to a nurse’s station to continuous free tea and coffee to the shuttle service for people living outside—even an exercise bike! And Rinpoche agrees, saying that Institut Vajra Yogini is the “best example of service in FPMT,” so good “even the birds are talking about it!”

The retreat itself has been amazing. Not just because Rinpoche has taught almost every night and not just for delicious French pastry that was our usual midnight tsog, but the session-by-session business of doing a retreat. The leader, Ven. Chantal Carrerot, was superb. Taking time off from creating the nearby Monastère Dorje Pamo, she was the perfect mixture of gentle and firm. Few were able to resist her quiet suggestions we all remain in silence, said so sweetly and so insistently. The technology of enlightenment also just gets better and better, with new downloads of prayers and images, if not daily, then quite often. And again, it’s little things like seeing the livestream of Rinpoche arriving and leaving projected on to the large screen in the teaching tent, rather than just hearing him giggle but invisible beyond a forest to retreatants. And of course, Rinpoche. He seems to be getting more entertaining each year (the “Solu Khumbo comedian” he calls himself), able to flip us from tears of compassion over the suffering of conveyor belt pigs to tears of laughter at some wonderfully observed absurdity of samsara. His message hasn’t changed, and it is one we all need so much.

Retreatants during Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching, Institut Vajra Yogini, France, May 2019. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Amazing indeed were the fellow vajra brothers and sisters who shared the retreat—from the old guard who were there at the very beginning of FPMT, such as Ven. Karin Valham (who has transformed the lives of tens of thousands of people in her more than three decades of teaching at Kopan Monastery in Nepal), to many newer students. And they come from all over the world, a greater diversity of countries than I’ve seen at any Rinpoche event. There was a big contingency from Australasia and North America as well as the usual Europeans, but also many Chinese from South East Asia, Taiwan, and Mainland China, and places such as Mexico, Mongolia, Russia, Latvia, and … the list goes on. Such a diverse group of people on one hand and so united in our love and devotion to Rinpoche on the other. It is truly inspiring to chat over a tea and discover the countless ways we are all working for Rinpoche and, because of that, for all beings.

Rinpoche told us at the beginning to not worry about counting mantras for the retreat because he wanted to give us a commentary on Vajrayogini. So far, he has not gone beyond the preliminaries, concentrating on lamrim, lamrim, and lamrim. However, there are those among us who feel he must finish the commentary and therefore must return to Institut Vajra Yogini to continue it next year, and the year after, and the year after. … And we’ll be there for another amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing retreat.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with ordained Sangha and lay students attending the Vajrayogini retreat at Institut Vajra Yogini, France, May 2019. Photo by Tsanka Petkova.

Watch recorded video of Rinpoche’s teachings from the Vajrayogini retreat here:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/vajrayogini-retreat-2019/

FPMT Education Services has created a lamrim resource page where students may find advice and materials to support their practice:
https://fpmt.org/education/prayers-and-practice-materials/lam-rim/

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 the beginning of the Vajrayogini Retreat at Institut Vajra Yogini, Marzens, France, May 2019. Photo by Tsanka Petkova.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is currently in the middle of teaching at the five-week Vajrayogini Retreat at Institut Vajra Vogini in the south of France. FPMT students from around the world—many of them students of Rinpoche for more than thirty years—are attending the retreat, which began on May 10. More than 450 people attended the first two weeks of the retreat, including about fifty ordained Sangha. More than 250 students are staying for the entire retreat.

Gordon McDougall, a UK student of Rinpoche and frequent editor of Rinpoche’s books, is attending the retreat and shares this report:

Varjayogini Retreat participants in front of the Kadampa stupa at Insitut Vajra Yogini, France, May 2019

Greetings from Vajrayogini’s pure land, as Lama Zopa Rinpoche so aptly named Institut Vajra Yogini (IVY) at the beginning of the five-week Vajrayogini retreat. I remember when Violette (one of the retreat’s key organizers) first told me Rinpoche had accepted to lead this retreat, it seemed that it would be something very special, and it is proving to be that.

What could have been an organizational nightmare has been made to look blissfully easy by the IVY team, which includes seventy volunteers. The chateau and grounds (and the beautiful French countryside around) are at their best, and the huge teaching tent feels surprisingly spacious. There is the usual array of audio-video equipment for the interpreters, video recording, and live webcast, and a big screen for Ven. Joan Nicell’s simultaneous transcriptions of Rinpoche’s teachings. And there are many flowers, offerings, and thangkas. If you’ve been to a big Rinpoche teaching event, you’ll probably be able to picture it well.

What I notice here, though, is the meticulous eye for detail, from the seating arrangements to the surprising small tables we each have. (When Ven. Chantal Carrerot, the retreat leader, mentioned that the table tops lift and the legs extend, she had to break for a few minutes while we all had great fun playing with them.)

It was wonderful to see the care the team took with the students as they arrived. Because there had been a general strike in France right before the retreat began, people had been stuck in strange cities or forced to find other ways of getting here and many arrived without their baggage, which was floating around France somewhere. In short, chaos, but it hasn’t seemed like that from this side. The team worked so hard to ensure everybody settled in without hassle.

As usual, the first couple of days were a frenzy of reunions. The energy was so high, with people who have been Dharma siblings for decades meeting each other again. I found it quite daunting to face so many people at once and so much hugging and greeting, but, at the same time, it is a fantastic feeling to be back among the FPMT family. And it really does feel like a family. I have known some—many—of the people smiling at me as we go around the big Kadampa stupa for thirty years. They are still at it, still devoted to our amazing holy guru. We worked out there is probably over 10,000 years Dharma experience here. All we have to do now is get enlightened.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching during the Vajrayogini Retreat, Institut Vajra Yogini, France, May 2019. Photo by Tsanka Petkova.

Owen Cole, a long-time FPMT student from Hayagriya Buddhist Centre in Perth, Australia, shares his experience of the first part of the retreat:

The retreat has every thing going for it. During the Heruka and Vajrayogini initiations, Lama Zopa Rinpoche pushed students to the limit with two separate nights of only three hours sleep, though we did get a generous break the next day. The students have responded with enthusiasm and discipline by attending sessions and observing course discipline, such as the silence periods.

The program follows the one favored by Rinpoche in retreats around the world with Guru Puja/Jorcho and additional prayers chanted first thing. This is followed by the sadhana or a teaching by Rinpoche or a talk by a Western Sangha member. We do protector prayers at night. Though everything is subject to change and often does.

IVY director Françios Lecointre and his amazing team are an inspiration for how they have organized the retreat, which has stretched the center’s facilities to capacity. Ever room in the old chateau is jam packed full of people with the overflow housed at nearby Nalanda Monastery, Dorje Palmo Nunnery, and other facilities near the quintessentially French town of Lavaur.

Volunteers serving a meal at the Varjayogini Retreat, Institut Vajra Yogini, France, May 2019. Photo by Tsanka Petkova.

The IVY staff and volunteers have gone out of their way to make the minds of participants happy, offering sun lounges to relieve the pressure on campers, umbrellas when it started raining, and extra blankets for those feeling the cold; taking great care of those who had to be hospitalized; and providing beautiful food in copious quantities. The volunteers are working to the point of exhaustion to help retreatants and keep things running smoothly. And they are patiently doing everything with a smile, which creates a wonderful sense of cooperative community.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche acknowledged their efforts in a teaching by saying their work had already achieved the same result of many lifetimes of retreat, adding that they had purified so many eons of negative karma as they were helping people look after their minds.

You can find links to live webcast of Rinpoche’s teachings here:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/

Watch recorded video of the non-restricted teachings from the retreat here:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/vajrayogini-retreat-2019/

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 arriving at Institut Vajra Yogini, Marzens, France, May 2019. Photo by Harald Weichhart.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche recently arrived at Institut Vajra Yogini (IVY) after giving teachings in Spain. A large gathering of students held khatas, glowing LED lights, and banners depicting the eight auspicious symbols as they awaited his night-time arrival at the FPMT center in southern France.

On Saturday, May 11, Rinpoche began teaching at a five-week Vajrayogini retreat, hosted by IVY. More than 400 students from around the world are attending the first ten days of the retreat. More than 250 students will be attending the entire retreat. Preliminary and non-restricted teachings by Rinpoche at the retreat will be webcast live. 

For details and links to watch Rinpoche teach live:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/ 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Nalanda Monastery, Labastide Saint Georges, France, May 2019. Photo by Harald Weichhart.

On May 9, Rinpoche visited nearby Nalanda Monastery, where Rinpoche was offered lunch and was greeted by the resident monks and other students. Rinpoche gave an oral transmission and teaching during his visit there.

Watch the video of Rinpoche’s arrival at IVY:
https://youtu.be/dA6ioxd2vm4

Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent teachings from Madrid, Spain, on FPMT.org:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/madrid_2019/

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 being led to the gompa at O.Sel.Ling Centro de Retiros by center director Anne Wenaas and Ven. Topgye, Spain, May 2019. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrote a benefactor thanking them for their support of a center and explaining a center’s benefits.

I just want to send you these cards and tell you that I highly appreciate your kindness in helping the center. The purpose of the center existing continually is to help sentient beings, and what sentient beings need most is to be free from the oceans of suffering, which is what they have been experiencing from beginningless rebirths. That means to be free from the oceans of samsaric suffering—the sufferings of rebirth, old age, sickness and death, and so forth. This is the suffering of pain. Then there is the suffering of change—all the samsaric pleasures, which cannot continue.

When we achieve enlightenment, that is when Dharma happiness is completed. The nature of samsaric pleasure is suffering. The suffering of pain and the suffering of change come from the third suffering, which is pervasive compounding suffering.

To be free from these three sufferings forever, we need to cease the cause of suffering—delusion and karma. For this we can’t have an operation in the hospital, or have it taken it out by a doctor or take tablets so it goes away. We can’t do that, it’s impossible. The only method is Dharma, the Buddha’s teachings. The centers are for that. That’s why the center is teaching Dharma, providing qualified teachers, translators, a place to practice, to hear the teachings and so many things.

This is a most urgent thing for sentient beings, more urgent than anything else. Not only that, through this it brings sentient beings to buddhahood, the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all realizations. Therefore, the need for the center to exist and to continue is of utmost importance for sentient beings.

By helping the center, you are helping all sentient beings, because then people come to learn Dharma at the center, and to practice bodhichitta, as they do the practice for all sentient beings, to benefit all sentient beings. That is how the center benefits numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless sura beings, numberless asura beings and numberless intermediate state beings.

From Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice “The Center is of Utmost Importance,” posted on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive in December 2018:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/center-utmost-importance

Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent teachings in Madrid, Spain:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/madrid_2019/

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 making prayers at Tso Pema, India, January 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche advised a student who wanted to help the sick and dying.

You don’t have to go [to the hospital] to help them; instead, wherever you stay, you can do the Eight Prayers to Benefit the Dead. Recite a different one, or two, each day, dedicated for them, for example, the “King of Prayers,” the “Prayer of the Virtuous Beginning, Middle and End,” the “Prayer to Be Reborn in Sukhavati,” Shantideva’s “Dedication Prayer,” and so forth. You can do that for them, as well as for every sentient being of the six realms.

Also, every OM MANI PADME HUM mantra you recite, or whatever mantras you do, such as Vajrayogini, you can do for every sentient being, including those who are sick and dying. That is helpful for them. Whatever you practice normally, do for others. Try to live your life for others—for every single sentient being, including every single insect, even the tiniest animals, and every single sura and asura. Whatever you do, try to help and dedicate it to everybody. That is very good.

Sometimes going to see people who are dying, if you don’t really know what helps them, then it can be that it doesn’t help and can even disturb their mind, causing attachment. Even if they regard it as good, actually it harms them by generating attachment. In the West people think attachment is very good, but they don’t know that generating attachment to the other person in reality is not helping but is harming.

Renunciation, bodhichitta, emptiness and correctly following virtuous friend [help those who are dying]. This is just talking from the side of sutra. This helps, otherwise it’s not so good. You have to know what is helping and what is harming. You have to know that. In the West, maybe the person is your enemy, but when that person is dying and you go to see them in hospital, if that person can’t speak, they may die with anger or attachment. So it harms them; it causes them to be reborn in the lower realms. I am using this as an example.

Anyway, for the time being it doesn’t come out to help those people who are dying and in the hospitals. What comes out best is to focus on your preliminary practices, retreats, and to do prayers for those people.

From Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice “How to Help People Who Are Sick and Dying,” posted on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website in December 2018:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/how-help-people-who-are-sick-and-dying

For more advice from Rinpoche on death and dying, please visit our page “Death and Dying: Heart  Practices and Advice”:
https://fpmt.org/death/

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche in Madrid, Spain, April 2019. Photo by Alexis Roitmann.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche sent this letter to all the staff at an FPMT center, thanking them for working at the center.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,

My thanks, first of all, that you have taken a human rebirth, from many lifetimes practice, praying, and dedicating to receive a human body and especially a perfect human body, and now being able to practice the Dharma and meet the Mahayana teachings. From that, any practice you do always begins with bodhichitta.

The main purpose of one’s life is to free the numberless sentient beings in each realm from the oceans of samsara suffering and to bring them to Buddhahood—the peerless happiness. So therefore one needs to achieve Buddhahood in order to be able to do the perfect works for the sentient beings, without the slightest mistake.

Any Mahayana practice that you do begins with bodhichitta, to benefit all the sentient beings in the six realms. That means any practice you do with this motivation is helping the numberless sentient beings in every realm, that means every single hell being, hungry ghost, animal, human, sura, and asura in the numberless universes, so all the numberless sentient beings everyone.

The center you are at is not only helping people by giving them the opportunity to come to the center, but also by coming to the center then they find out about all the meditation subjects and the path to enlightenment.

By meeting Buddhism and finding out about meditation and the path to enlightenment, this is what helps them to purify past negative karma, to stop rebirths in the lower realms, by practicing morality, charity, and so forth. This creates the cause for higher rebirths in future lives, not even just for one lifetime. By practicing morality, keeping one precept, practicing charity, then this helps for so many hundreds and thousands of lifetimes. So it’s amazing, amazing the results.

In the Arya Sanghata Sutra the Buddha says, “The benefits of making charity to sentient beings, even the size of a single strand of hair, for eighty eons the result will be unbelievable wealth.”

Therefore in everyday life, practice charity with a healthy mind. I am saying this in a Western way, for those who don’t believe in reincarnation and karma. So then I say, a healthy mind, positive mind. So to practice with a mind without attachment, this is a peaceful mind. A mind with attachment is a disturbed mind, a contaminated mind, contaminated with suffering. So practice charity with a mind without attachment. Whether it is big or small charity, it is always helping, especially if it is to those in need, giving anything. So whatever you can give, this is the most important thing and this is creating a healthy life. From charity comes wealth and success in this life and next lives.

From pure morality, this leads to good rebirth, and being able to meet Dharma and to practice Dharma. Not only that, the next thing is be to free from samsara, by practicing the three higher trainings—the higher training of morality, the higher training of concentration, and the higher training of wisdom.

So now you can see by people coming to the center they learn how to be free from the oceans of samsara suffering. Not just for a few hours or a few days, but forever. Can you imagine?

So no matter how hard it is, it is so worthwhile because you are creating the cause for them to be free from death, free from suffering, free from birth, old age, and sickness, and so forth, to be free from the suffering of depression and dissatisfaction. Even the dissatisfaction of billionaires and zillionaires is worse than the suffering in the hell realms. Then there are the three kinds of suffering. There is the suffering of pain. Then, the suffering of change—which refers to all samsaric pleasures (such as the pleasures of music, surfing, jumping out of an airplane with a parachute, sex, drugs, alcohol, and so forth). All the samsara pleasures are in reality in the nature of suffering, but they appear as pleasure to begin with. This is what is called the suffering of change. Then the third suffering, the all-pervasive compounded suffering, is being under the contaminated seed of delusion and karma. So it is pervaded by karma, the seed. There is no worse suffering that the pervasive compounded suffering.

So to be free from all of this forever, this is by learning Buddhism, meditation, the three higher trainings, the five paths to liberation, and so forth. It is from this that one can know how to be free from samsara forever. Not only that, they meet the Mahayana teachings, learn bodhichitta on the basis of generating compassion to all sentient beings, practice the six paramitas, the sutra five paths and ten bhumis, and then they are able to meet the Mahayana tantra. And by practicing Mahayana tantra, they are able to achieve enlightenment in one brief lifetime of degenerate time.

It is by practicing the eight Mahayana precepts, or eight pratimoksha precepts, five lay vows, or even less than five, like four, three, two, or one, even just for one day, this is what helps for five hundred lifetimes to have a human rebirth or deva rebirth and so forth.

By practicing charity it brings the success of wealth and so forth, all the enjoyments, for many hundreds of lifetimes, or even thousands of lifetimes. This can come from even just one time giving charity. This is the real cause of success in your life.

Practicing the good heart is the most important thing and the best cause of success in your life. For however many times you are born in samsara, until you achieve the ultimate wisdom directly perceiving emptiness that ceases delusion and karma, which are the causes of the oceans of suffering in samsara, practicing the good heart is the real cause of happiness. Then there is no non-virtue, only virtue. The good heart is the best way to create virtue.

“In the service of others” is written in Spanish on the backs of t-shirts created for the Lama Zopa Rinpoche event in Spain, April 2019. Photo by Alexis Roitmann.

Of course people would think that it is from education. But there are so many uneducated people in the world, in less developed countries, who are so happy, whose wishes get fulfilled, who have wealth and all their wishes succeed, but they have no education. Education can help, but it is not the main cause; it is the condition. Many times, if you have education but don’t have a good heart, then having education causes problems such as ego, pride, non-virtuous thought, the thought to harm others and to destroy the world, and so forth.

Therefore some people have high degrees and very good education, but still they cannot find jobs, or it takes a long time. Of course if the person’s mind is open then I would suggest reading the Arya Sanghata Sutra and Golden Light Sutra in order to collect unbelievable merits and the causes of success. Then also my general advice is every day to help insects, people, animals, and especially those who have problems, to help them in any way possible.

So the ultimate conclusion is to practice the good heart. This is the best Dharma. With the good heart everything happens, especially enlightenment—the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations—not only to achieve enlightenment, but to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsara sufferings and to bring them to enlightenment.

So this is what you are doing and what the center does. All of you who are helping the center and working at the center, you are helping every sentient being, every animal, every ant in the differing universes, every mosquito, all the different kinds of fish, every slug, every mouse, every maggot, and every tiny flea.

Thank you very much. Please enjoy life with the good heart. That is the best way to enjoy the life. With a good heart, this causes inner happiness that goes up to enlightenment.

Thank you very much, see you soon.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

Colophon: Scribed by Holly Ansett, Taos, New Mexico, US, June 2017. Lightly edited by Laura Miller, March 2019.

Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche teach live from Madrid, Spain, April 26-29:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/

Find recordings of recent Lama Zopa Rinpoche teachings:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/

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 blessing water to put in the lake and benefit all beings there, Madrid, Spain, April 2019. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

A student wrote to Lama Zopa Rinpoche about how she and her brothers and sisters responded to the murder of their father and grandmother. Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrote back to the student and then requested that his letter and an edited version of the student’s original letter be shared online so that all could read them. Here is Rinpoche’s letter: 

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,

Thank you very much for your kind letter explaining your experience. Since you are a lawyer, what you would do normally, and what other people in the world would do normally, is only think of this lifetime, especially if someone had killed your father. That kind of harm is a huge and difficult one to bear.

Most people don’t think about karma, reincarnation, and so forth, and that all problems come from the mind, come from I. They don’t know that. Or even if they know intellectually, they don’t practice that. So they would put that person, whom they called “enemy,” in prison or they would kill that person, harm them back, or even do worse if they can. That is normally what people think and do in the world.

Then for a long time you were checking your experience and you realized that it is the result; you experienced the result of what you did in the past to others. The person who killed your father and grandmother were badly treated and harmed by you in the past.

Then you helped your brothers and sisters be harmonious and decide to help, instead of take revenge. This is the greatest practice. This is what Buddha said to do when somebody harms. This is what Buddha and what holy beings do in the world, and what bodhisattvas do. Somebody harmed you, worldly people say “an enemy,” but instead of harming back, you only benefit. This is what holy beings, bodhisattvas do, like that. Your actions follow that. This is the actual practice.

You made numberless gurus—His Holiness the Dalai Lama, all the gurus, all the buddhas, numberless bodhisattvas—most happy. You and your brothers and sisters made them most happy, pleased them the most. It is the best.

With my two hands together at my heart, I am thanking you a billion, zillion times from my heart to you and to your brothers and sisters. Please tell them I am thanking them. You pleased most His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the Buddha of Compassion, and then numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas.

The great bodhisattva Shantideva said in The Bodhisattva’s Way of Life:

My karma persuaded them,
Therefore, I received this harm.
Because of that, didn’t I make the person fall in the hole of the hell?

What it is saying is first why you received this harm. For example, relating to your life story, because you treated a person that way in a past life, the result happened: you received harm, and your father and grandmother were killed. By that action that happened, now the person who harmed is in the human realm, but soon that will end. That person will leave the human realm. And due to that negative karma, they will get born in the hole of the hell. Then suffer in the hell realms for an unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable length of time, suffer the heaviest suffering.

So that is not only practicing patience, but developing compassion, by thinking that the person who harmed you, which was due to your negative karma, now has to be born in hell and suffer for an unbelievable length of time. All that started originally from you; you harmed this person. This is a way to develop compassion—thinking about what obliged the person to do to harm, to engage in negative karma, to harm you. So please tell this to your sisters and brothers.

So in essence in Buddhism, first thinking only of your happiness, you see that to not receive harm from others, you don’t harm others. If you don’t harm others, then you don’t receive harm from others. If you benefit others, then as a result others benefit you, bring happiness to you. So that is only thinking of cherishing yourself, thinking only of you. So now thinking of numberless sentient beings, you stop harming others, then they don’t receive harm. The numberless sentient beings you benefit, they receive happiness. So this is incredible Mahayana Buddhism. This is the great vehicle, without talking about tantra. This is the basic practice of Mahayana Buddhism.

Similarly, the Tibetan people want to fight, like in the normal world, fight back at Mainland China, but His Holiness the Dalai Lama advised them to not fight. Without fighting the truth will win. He is talking only peace, in terms of dealing with Mainland China, only dealing in peace. If you fight, what happens is a similar story as you mentioned. Then you are creating the negative karma to receive harm from others, again and again. Then there is no end to suffering in samsara, no end, not only no beginning, but no end.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama advised that only by being peaceful, only by truth, will they win peace. It is so important this advice. This way you don’t receive harm back from others. You aren’t attacked by others. You don’t experience war. You get only the result—peace and happiness. You treat others peacefully, and as a result you receive peace, others help you. That is really Dharma practice.

Please tell your brothers and sisters, that is real practice, the best Dharma practice. What your family did, that should be an example to the world, to those who have highest scientific knowledge. Your family is a good example for all those billionaires and zillionaires. It is a good example for anyone—educated, uneducated, poor, rich. This is the best example for them.

Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

Here is the letter first sent by the student to Lama Zopa Rinpoche:

Dear Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche,

… Five days after my ordination, my grandmother and father died in the same event. I felt shocked about losing my father. Just that day in the morning, he called me and asked me if I was happy with the ordination. He was Catholic, but respectful. I replied I was very happy. Then he replied he was happy for me too. Same day at night, he died with his mother in their house.

They were poisoned by gas in their house. The gas was coming from the kitchen, and they fell asleep and died. In time, we discovered they were killed. My father’s first cousin killed them in order to steal or inherit money and keep it from my family. When we discovered that, it was a great shock. I have two brothers and two sisters. We were very angry.

I was incredibly angry, very confused. Just being ordained, I was trying my best to have a good heart and good thoughts. On the other hand, I was very angry about what happened. Out of anger I decided to go and visit the person who killed my father. I took my purse and started to walk to the car. Suddenly an image of you, Rinpoche, came into my mind. You were sitting in meditation posture with a beautiful and exquisite smile. At that moment, I started to cry so deeply and I realized what had happened. Straight away I thought, “Only because of Rinpoche’s great compassion did he ordained me.”

Then I decided to not visit the person who damaged my family. I cried and cried for a couple of days, trying to put all the experience together. I just felt that ordination was protecting my mind from seeing (I was a lawyer before) revenge, killing, cheating, and stealing. Feeling so protected by you, feeling so, so fortunate, I made the following statement: “From now on, my aim and duty is going to be to reduce my anger. When I am capable of overcoming anger, then I will help my brothers and sisters.”

During many months I did analytical meditation about anger. After one year, the anger had been reduced very much. Then I started working with my brothers and sisters to reduce their anger. One day, continuing with analytical meditation, I thought, “Maybe that was family karma.” Then I thought, “If that is the case, that means that in the past we have created the same, killing and stealing an inheritance for our own family.”

I imagined killing my own family and stealing from them, and it was so difficult to believe. Because in this life I have not killed a human being. And I had the belief that I was a good person. I continued meditating and analyzing. And then I got an insight: “I cannot experience anything that I have not created.”

So I imagined again myself with my two brothers and two sisters killing someone’s father and stealing the inheritance. Oh, Rinpoche, the biggest pain I’ve ever experienced came, thinking and understanding that in a past life I had dared to kill someone, so painful. It’s very difficult to overcome that. By thinking about it over and over, after two years I felt some peace, to understand that we were experiencing the result of actions that we had created. If we created it, we deserved the result.

Then I thought, if we created it in another lifetime, in this life the best thing to do is not to put that person in jail but to offer the inheritance to the person who killed and stole from my family. After many meetings with my brothers and sisters, we decided to give away the money and properties from the inheritance to the cousin who killed and not to put her in prison. We decided peace in death was more important than inheritance, and peace in life was more important.

This story, Rinpoche, is to voice my huge gratitude to you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you so, so much Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche for saving my life and protect my mind all the time. …

Colophon: Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s letter scribed by Ven. Holly Ansett, Nepal, March 2017. Both letters lightly edited by Laura Miller, March 2019.

Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche teach live from Madrid, Spain, April 26-29:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/

Find more advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche:
https://fpmt.org/teachers/zopa/advice/

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.

Water bowls and extensive offerings at Ganden Do Ngag Shedrub Ling Center, Mongolia, offered by a dedicated group of elderly volunteers.

Since 2000, a group of very dedicated volunteers have been offering over a thousand water bowls plus extensive offerings of flowers, incense, candles, and food daily at Ganden Do Ngag Shedrub Ling Center, Mongolia. In August, Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered these volunteers lunch to thank them for their incredible kindness and perseverance. 

Most of the volunteers are retired women who have been providing this service every morning for a number of years. The average volunteer is 60-75 years old and there are two ladies who are 86. Despite hardships of weather (temperature lows can reach -20 °F) or physical challenges, the volunteers complete the offering practice daily. If 10-15 people participate, they finish in approximately 1.5-2 hours; if just a few participate, they need 2-3 hours to complete. At the conclusion of the daily offering activity, they all enjoy breakfast together. This is remarkable dedication on the part of these extraordinary volunteers. 

Volunteers enjoying lunch offered by Lama Zopa Rinpoche as thanks for their dedication.

This is one of a few places in the world where extensive offerings like this are happening every day. The only other locations are at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, (in Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s rooms); Root Institute, India, (in Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s room); Kachoe Dechen Ling, CA, USA; and Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington State, USA. Extensive light offerings occur at Amitabha Buddhist Centre, Singapore; and Chokyi Gyaltsen Center, Penang, Malaysia. 

“We are not aware of the limitless skies of benefits we achieve from the practice of offering, what we can achieve and enjoy from life to life. Even while you are in samsara, you enjoy good rebirths, wealth, and every happiness. Even just the samsaric perfections are amazing, without adding all those incredible realizations that allow us to offer deep benefit to sentient beings, liberating them from oceans of samsaric suffering and its cause, delusion and karma.”   — Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Please rejoice that these daily offerings are occurring in Mongolia and the other locations mentioned around the world. Lama Zopa Rinpoche often advises students, whenever making offerings ourselves, to visualize places around the world where extensive daily offerings are made, in order to greatly increase our own effort.  In this way, all are welcome to participate. Lama Zopa Rinpoche personally makes these offerings daily in his prayers before meals. 

Thanks to each of the dedicated volunteers who have committed to offering in this way daily despite external complications or obstacles. Truly amazing!

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Tushita Meditation Centre, McLeod Ganj, India, February 2019. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

During the 2018 retreat in Australia, Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave advice on how to prepare for retreat, captured in this excerpt and video clip:

… I escaped [Tibet] through Bhutan to Buxa [Duar in India]. For eight years I lived in Buxa. Other monks lived there for ten years then went to Bylakuppe and Mundgod. I received teachings from my gurus and took part in debating. Of course my study was like that of a little child. My study was just child’s study, so nothing much.

So after coming back to Lawudo [in Nepal], reading the text of the Kadampa geshes’ advice on how to practice Dharma [Opening the Door of Dharma: The Initial Stage of Training the Mind in the Graduated Path to Enlightenment, a collection of advice by Lodro Gyaltsen] I checked back over my life.

All those lives I checked back, which become Dharma or not, what became Dharma or not, what I did and whether it became Dharma or not. When I looked back by reading that text, nothing became Dharma. All those things I did didn’t become Dharma. I realized that nothing became Dharma.

Then because of that I was able to clean my mind like you clean the room, like you clean the house of garbage—it makes the house dirty so you clean it out. I was able to clean my mind by reading that.

Then I began the Vajrayogini retreat, my first time. So because of that, it was unbelievable, incredible, hard to believe the first day, hard to believe that if my life could be like this, my whole life could be like this. I couldn’t believe, incredible peace and happiness, peace was incredible, unbelievable, couldn’t believe the whole life could be like that. The retreat became really very pure because of having read that text and cleaned out the garbage of the mind.

So the garbage is the eight worldly dharmas. This is an idea for you, if you want to do retreat, the best thing is to read this text. I gave teachings in Bodhgaya so there is book, what is it called?

Student: The Door to Satisfaction.

Rinpoche: It is not completely translated from the Tibetan text, most has been, but not completely translated. So to read that before doing retreat, my experience is to clean your mind first then you begin tantra retreat, then it becomes clean, very pure. Then you taste the Dharma, your mind becomes Dharma. …

Watch more of Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching on “Why to Abandon the Eight Worldly Dharmas, How to Prepare for Retreat”:
https://youtu.be/uJzPi45Rc-U

Colophon: Excerpted from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, Bendigo, Victoria, Australia, April 8, 2018. Simultaneously transcribed by Ven. Joan Nicell. Lightly edited by Laura Miller, February 2019.

Find complete videos of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent teachings:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/

Rinpoche teaches in Spain, April 26-29, then leads a Vajrayogini retreat at Institut Vajra Yogini in France, beginning May 10. Public teachings from these events will be streamed live:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/

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.

From left, Ven. Roger Kunsang, Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi, and Khadro-la making offerings to Lama Zopa Rinpoche during long life puja, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, April 2019. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Every year, Ven. Roger Kunsang checks whether any practices need to be done to contribute to FPMT Spiritual Director Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s health and long life.

This year, Khadro-la (Rangjung Neljorma Khandro Namsel Dronme) advised that a Sixteen Arhat Long Life Puja, with additional recitations of Tendrel Topa, would be beneficial. 

Long life puja for Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, April 2019. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

On Saturday, April 6, the recommended long life puja was offered at Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Khadro-la attended the puja as did Dagri Rinpoche and Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi, Kopan’s abbot who returned from Singapore to lead the puja. In addition to the Kopan community, many students from FPMT centers worldwide were also in attendance.

Long life puja for Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, April 2019. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Khadro-la, Khen Rinpoche, and Ven. Roger jointly offered Rinpoche a Vajrayogini statue in request for Rinpoche’s long life on behalf of the FPMT organization.

Watch a fifteen-minute video created by Kopan Monastery School of the April 6, 2019, long life puja:
https://www.facebook.com/KopanMonasterySchool/videos/2016747651749647/

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, Saviese, Switzerland, November 2018. Photo by Olivier Adam.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave advice regarding merit multiplying days such as the Fifteen Days of Miracles, Saka Dawa, Chokhor Duchen, and Lhabab Duchen. The next merit multiplying day is Saka Dawa on June 17, 2019.

On the day of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s turning the Wheel of Dharma, if you do one prostration while reciting the names of the Thirty-Five Buddhas, it becomes equal to having done 100 million prostrations while reciting the names of the Thirty-Five Buddhas. If you recite one Vajrasattva mantra, it becomes the same as having done the Vajrasattva mantra 100 million times. If you recite the Diamond Cutter Sutra (Vajra Cutter Sutra) one time, it becomes the same as having recited the Diamond Cutter Sutra 100 million times—so that much purification and you collect that many merits to quickly be free from samsara, and if the practices are done with bodhichitta, then to quickly achieve enlightenment.

Reading the Golden Light Sutra (Sutra of Golden Light), besides the personal benefits that creates, also brings so much peace in the world, for the Buddhadharma to last a long time, which means more sentient beings being able to meet the Dharma and to achieve enlightenment. Then, also reciting the Arya Sanghata Sutra, which brings success, including enlightenment. Each recitation becomes 100 million recitations—so please tell your parents and friends this.

This is the best way to help your parents and this really helps your parents. You can tell others this also and their friends. This really helps the world, to make a better world.

Please read my notes well. Don’t rush. Think about each word.

Also on these days, you can do tonglen—taking others sufferings and giving away one’s own happiness—then, also rejoicing. You can meditate on dependent arising (meaning, emptiness only) and develop bodhichitta. Of course, you can do self-initiation during this very special time according to the time in India.

If you want to know which lama and which text mentioned this, it was His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s and His Eminence Sakya Trizin’s guru—Chobgye Trichen Rinpoche. Rinpoche referred to Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s teaching Dulwa Lung (‘dul ba lung) as saying that the number the merit multiplies by is 100 million. It is a great advantage to practice during these times; like for myself, who is the most extremely laziest person in this world.

Another very important practice to do on these days is taking the eight Mahayana precepts for one day until the next day at sunrise. That doesn’t mean necessarily until sunrise Indian time. It means sunrise at the place where you are; up until dawn, when the sun rises in your part of the world.

In case there are difficulties to keeping all eight precepts, perhaps due to work, for example, you can take the rest of the vows well. Taking the eight Mahayana precepts is so beneficial for world peace, for crops to grow well, to receive timely rains—all this is needed to make the world better. Then, there are incredible benefits for yourself. This is explained in the book of the eight Mahayana precepts. This is so important for your own life to be better and to make the world better, to bring benefit.

Written by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, August 2017, United States. Edited by Michael D. Jolliffe for publication on FPMT.org.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation, and community service.