Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with attendant Ven. Sangpo Sherpa at Maitreya Instituut Loenen, July 2015. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

While Lama Zopa Rinpoche was at Maitreya Instituut Loenen in July 2015, he gave a short impromptu talk during lunch on offerings. Rinpoche talked about the incredible merit that one can collect making offering to different beings from parents up to numberless buddhas and gurus. 

“If you offer to one bodhisattva who has generated bodhichitta, you collect … [much, much] … more merit than offering to numberless arhats,” Rinpoche explained, while making one of his trademark gestures for incredibly huge amounts of merit.

“If you look at a bodhisattva, you look with a calm, devotional mind, you make more merit than giving your eyes to three realms sentient beings. … Why? Because having generated bodhichitta and completely abandoned self-cherishing, they cherish numberless sentient beings, numberless animals, numberless sentient beings in the ocean, on the ground, in the grass, the sky, the trees, numberless hell beings, numberless pretas, numberless humans, numberless suras and asuras. They cherish everyone – no one is left out.”

Watch the video of Lama Zopa Rinpoche talking about making offerings on YouTube. 

You can find this video and more video clips of Rinpoche on FPMT.org at:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/videos-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, with the assistance of Osel Dorje Rinpoche, departing from Maratika Caves, Nepal, Febraury 2016. Osel Dorje Rinpoche is a famous Nyingma lama and teacher of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

On May 2, Ven. Roger Kunsang shared on his Twitter page this very brief teaching from Lama Zopa Rinpoche:

Lama Zopa ; quoting HHDL [His Holiness the Dalai Lama] … If you follow delusion only suffering follows, if you follow the good heart only happiness follows.

Ven. Roger Kunsang, Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s assistant and CEO of FPMT Inc., shares Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent pith sayings on Ven. Roger’s Twitter page.

Video recordings from Rinpoche’s recent teaching tour in Southeast Asia are now freely available on FPMT.org’s “Rinpoche Available Now” page:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/

More information, photos and updates about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be found on Rinpoche’s webpage. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche via email, sign up to receive FPMT News.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Amitabha Buddhist Centre in front of the new Chenrezig statue, Singapore, March 2016. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

A student wrote Lama Zopa Rinpoche: “I have suffered from a torturing mental illness for eight years. I have seen doctors and even counselors, but nothing helps. I’m completely unable to control my mind to think any positive thing.”

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

I am very sorry you have this. I am also very sorry for the delay in replying to your email.

If you really want to listen to me, then do this attached practice every day. It shows the meaning of life and how to transform life – like iron into gold, like kaka into gold, like poison into medicine. This is the best medicine for the mind and through that, cures all the physical problems.

I am also doing some practices specifically for you.

Have you met Tibetan Buddhism? Are you familiar with it? I checked and you should recite the Compassion Buddha (Chenrezig) mantra – OM MANI PADME HUM. Here are some links that have some of the benefits of OM MANI PADME HUM. You can read the benefits.

Teachings from the Mani Retreat

Chenrezig Mantra (Audio and Unedited Transcripts) [particularly, the chapters “Benefits of OM MANI PADME HUM” and “Benefits of OM MANI PADME HUM (con’t)”]

I will be producing one book in English and Tibetan that has different prayers to recite every day to Chenrezig when you recite the mantra. So you can get that when it is finished, but in the meantime, do this.

Reciting OM MANI PADME HUM purifies negative karma – all the obscurations – collected from beginningless rebirths. It is unbelievable. Even by reciting the mantra one time, a fully ordained monk who has broken the four root vows (to not have sexual intercourse, steal what belongs to others, kill a human being, or tell lies that he has realizations while he doesn’t have them) is purified. Just reciting OM MANI PADME HUM purifies the five heavy negative karmas (it saves from being born in the lower realms) of even having killed this life’s parents; caused blood to flow from a buddha; killed an arhat, who is free from samsara, who has removed the causes of samsara – delusion and karma; and caused disunity among the Sangha. If somebody commits all of these five heavy negative karmas without break (or even just one of these), the ripening of all other negative karmas get delayed and then immediately as soon as death happens, that person is reborn in the eighth hot hell of unbearable suffering, where one’s body is in the shape of a rock, but on fire, and the only way you can tell it is a sentient being is by hearing the screaming. This heaviest suffering lasts one intermediate eon, but even if this world becomes empty, there are numberless other universes and so there are other universes’ hell realms where you get reborn into until the karma is finished. This gets purified not only by reciting this mantra, but even just by seeing the syllables OM MANI PADME HUM – it is so powerful – wow, wow, wow!

The 10 non-virtuous actions also easily get purified by reciting this mantra. That means we are unbelievably, most unbelievably fortunate to be able to recite OM MANI PADME HUM – wow, wow, wow, wow, wow!

Mani stone at Rinpoche’s house at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington, US. Photo by Chris Majors.

Even to recite it without bodhichitta, which is the purest motivation, the ultimate good heart, even without that, if you recite this mantra, you collect unbelievable good luck, more than the drops of water in the Pacific Ocean. (Good luck is something that comes from the mind. There is no good luck from the outside, existing without the mind, even though this is what normal people believe – that good luck is something that really exists by itself, does not comes from the mind, is not created by the mind.) You collect merit, the cause of happiness and success, and not just the happiness of this life, but the happiness of future lives: good rebirth as a deva or human, or rebirth in a pure land. It unbelievable, unbelievable! Also, ultimate happiness – total liberation from oceans of samsaric suffering and their causes – wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow!

This means forever, not just for a few days, a few years and then come back to suffering realms, samsara – it’s not like that. Here you can achieve full enlightenment; it plants the seed of enlightenment.

Enlightenment is a word commonly used by Buddhist people and non-Buddhists as well. It means “buddhahood,” or in Tibetan, the word is sangye – the total cessation of all the gross and subtle obscurations and the completion of all the realizations. That means there is no suffering at all; so that’s the first thing you achieve.

You collect good luck and merit, more than the number of sand grains in the Pacific Ocean, more than the numbers of drops of water when there is rain.

If you recite OM MANI PADME HUM even one time with the purest motivation, the ultimate good heart, bodhichitta, the precious thought of enlightenment, the thought to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and to bring them to full enlightenment – wishing to achieve buddhahood, the cessation of all the obscurations and the completion of all the realizations – oneself, you collect merit more than the sky. To recite one mala of OM MANI PADME HUM – wow, wow, wow! With each mantra you collect more merit than the sky! Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow! You should feel so unbelievably lucky with the opportunity you have.

I want to send you a picture of Chenrezig so you can look at it when you recite. When you get the photo, if it has no brocade, you can put two-colored yellow cloth around the borders and then frame it. The two-colored cloth is like offering dress to the holy object. Also, it looks very beautiful.

Thank you very much, thank you so much. I think you should know that what you are experiencing is due to your past karma, having harmed others, and things like that. That is the main cause. There is an outside spirit influencing your mind, making you think this and that harms you. You don’t have to listen. Only listen to worthwhile things that don’t harm you and aren’t harmful to others. Only listen if what you are hearing is for the peace and happiness of others. So you have to check whether it’s worthwhile or not. If it is harmful, then don’t do it, don’t trust it. You have to check. Otherwise, if you do whatever your mind thinks, then it can be very dangerous and you could commit suicide. That is dangerous. Many people’s minds are influenced by spirits, due to past negative karma done with delusion – ignorance, anger, attachment and so forth.

The very wrong concept, ignorance – holding the “I” as truly existent, existing from its own side, or existing by nature, or, in ordinary language, as “real,” as it appears – is a total hallucination. It is not that there is no “I” there. There is “I,” but it is on the merely labeled valid aggregates, which are the basis to be labeled “I.” “I” is what is merely labeled relating to the aggregates by the valid mind. That’s all; that’s reality. But for us ordinary people who haven’t developed the mind in shunyata, emptiness, it looks like this “I” is what really exists. It exists in mere name; it’s so subtle, like it doesn’t exist for our mind. The “I,” which is a total hallucination, like a dream, it never exists anywhere, even for one second since beginningless time as it has never been real. When this hallucination appears, we believe it really exists and that’s why hell beings, hungry ghost, animals, human beings, asuras, suras suffer in the six realms of samsara.

Thank you very much. I’m happy you sent what you think, the difficulties you have, as it gives me a chance to be able to talk to you.

Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

Scribed by Ven. Holly Ansett, India, January 2016. Edited for inclusion on FPMT.org.

Learn more about Lama Zopa Rinpoche, spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), and Rinpoche’s vision for a better world. Visit FPMT.org and sign up to receive news and updates.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche blessing rabbits at Sera Je Monastery, India, January 2016. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

While staying at Osel Labrang at Sera Je Monastery in January 2016, Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave blessings to the rabbits there.

You can watch a video of the blessings on FPMT.org’s “Lama Zopa Rinpoche Videos” page, where short videos of Rinpoche teaching and giving blessings are collected and shared:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/videos-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/

More information, photos and updates about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be found on Rinpoche’s webpage on FPMT.org. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and FPMT via email, sign up to FPMT News.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche arriving at Chokyi Gyaltsen Center, with resident teachers Geshe Deyang and Ven. Roger Kunsang, Penang, Malaysia, March 2016. Photo by Bill Kane.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave this teaching to about 50 ordained Sangha during a visit to a giant shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in April 2016. Rinpoche was in Kuala Lumpur giving teachings organized by Losang Dragpa Centre.

Think of the five aggregates: [form, feeling, discriminative awareness, compositional factors and consciousness]. Be mindful of how you label the aggregates, how in the beginning they are just merely labeled. Watch that.

In the next second the “I” is supposed to appear back to you merely labeled by the mind. That is what happens in reality, but that doesn’t happen.

The “I” is merely labeled by mind but it only appears like that to a buddha because buddhas don’t have even the subtle negative imprints – the obscurations to knowledge (Tib: she-drip) – left by the ignorance holding the “I” as truly existent. Having totally purified these, these have ceased [in a buddha’s mindstream]. There is no dualistic view, no hallucination, no projection when the “I” and all phenomena appear as truly existing from their own side, as real. A buddha does not have this hallucination at all. You have to understand that. What appears to a buddha is what is merely labeled by the mind. 

But for us ordinary sentient beings, in the next second [Rinpoche snaps his fingers], it appears back not merely labeled by the mind. It appears back as the total opposite of that. That, in the Prasangika view, is the gag-cha, the object to be refuted. According to the Prasangika Madhyamaka, the second [subschool] of the Madhyamaka, gag-cha, the object to be refuted, is the total opposite to that; it appears back to you as not merely labeled by the mind. The real “I” that appears to you is the subtle gag-cha.

The Svatantrika subschool’s view is grosser. For them it appears as not labeled by mind and existing from its own side. Before I said “not merely labeled” but here it is not even labeled by the mind. They see the “I” that appears to you as truly existing from its own side, as real. It is much grosser.

Also, there’s the Mind Only school. They say the real “I” exists without depending on the imprints left on the seventh consciousness, [the mind basis of all, Skt: alaya vijnana], from which both subject and object arise.

According to the lower schools, what is one hundred percent to be abandoned is believing that the “I” truly exists and is self-sufficient and independent, that is to say, independent of other things such as the aggregates. That’s the very gross wrong view to be refuted.

The “I” appears to us as permanent, existing alone [unitary] and independent. When the “I” appears to you, all this is there. This way that the “I” appears to you is extremely gross. It’s the grossest hallucination. This is what is believed in Hinduism and for them this is the right view. For us, however, the way the “I” appears is the wrong view.

So, you see how all the other schools’ views of what gag-cha is – how the “I” appears to us – are to be totally abandoned as they are all the wrong view.

Not only the subject, the “I”, but also the action, the object, all the sounds, smells, tastes and tangible objects – all the six sense objects – are all merely labeled by the mind, by your mind. However, in the next second they don’t appear as merely labeled by the mind. They appear as not merely labeled by the mind. Everything that appears back to you – all these wrong views, right up to Svatantrika – appear as permanent and existing alone [as unitary], and with their own freedom [as independent.]

When you walk, there’s one meditation you can do. Everything, even subtle things, should appear merely labeled by mind – the “I,” action, object, everything. But, that doesn’t happen for us sentient beings. They do not appear not merely labeled by mind, even when you go to the supermarket. Whatever you look at – all these forms, all these many thousands and millions of things: the sky, the road, the people – all appear to you according to the wrong views described by all those schools. Meditate on that.

If you can recognize even what’s asserted by the lower schools, gradually you can recognize the wrong views to be refuted by Madhyamaka schools, first the Svatantrika’s and then the Prasangika’s.

The main thing is to think that all these things are like an illusion. As I’ve said before, ignorance is like the magician. It leaves a negative imprint on the mind, like a magician who uses mantras to cause hallucinations. The audience’s senses are “hallucinated,” seeing lapis lazuli palaces and all kinds of things. The magician has hallucinated the audience. Their senses are “illusioned.”

You’re illusioned by your ignorance. The magician is ignorance; you are the audience. All this is an illusion. I’m sitting here, you’re sitting there. We’re here having tea, but all of this is illusioned as real – real “I,” real restaurant, real tea, real snacks. All the rest is the same, appearing real.

Recognize all the wrong views, that in the end, all these are like hallucinations. You’re walking and you hallucinate the “I,” you hallucinate the action of walking, you hallucinate the road, you hallucinate the car, you hallucinate the building.

The other way to see it is as like a dream. Everything you look at is like a dream. You walk and you talk but [at the same time] the mind is practicing mindfulness, seeing it all as like a dream. You walk, talk, eat and so forth, but the most important thing is to recognize that this is all like a dream, like a hallucination, like an illusion, like a mirage.

When you do that, attachment doesn’t arise, anger doesn’t arise. There is no reason for anger or attachment to arise. That’s how it becomes the antidote to samsara, the antidote to ignorance.

Then, if it’s done with bodhichitta, thinking, “I must achieve enlightenment to benefit sentient beings, to free them from the oceans of samsara and bring them to enlightenment,” it becomes the cause of enlightenment.

From a talk given in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in April2016. Transcribed by Ven. Thubten Munsel. Edited for inclusion on FPMT.org by Gordon McDougall.

CORRECTION: This teaching was giving in Kuala Lumpur in April 2016, not in Penang in March 2016 as first published. It has been corrected in the text.

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 enjoying a very funny moment!” May 2016. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang via Twitter.

On May 20, Ven. Roger Kunsang shared on his Twitter page this very brief teaching from Lama Zopa Rinpoche:

Rinpoche was asked “what does rest mean to you?” Rinpoche replied “abiding in virtue!”

Video recordings from Rinpoche’s recent teaching tour in Southeast Asia now freely available on FPMT.org’s “Rinpoche Available Now” page:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/

Ven. Roger Kunsang, Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s assistant and CEO of FPMT Inc., shares Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent pith sayings on Ven. Roger’s Twitter page.

More information, photos and updates about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be found on Rinpoche’s webpage. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche via email, sign up to receive FPMT News.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has requested that this Thang Thong Gyalpo protection be made available to all students living in areas threatened by earthquakes. Rinpoche recently added text to the image, which he is recommending to students in Taiwan, California, New Zealand and other areas around the world that are in danger of having earthquakes. The earthquake protection should be displayed (i.e., posted on walls). 

The Thang Thong Gyalpo protection PDF can be downloaded and printed. 

“Rinpoche uses the example of a place in Solu Khumbu where all the houses were destroyed after the April 2015 earthquake except one house that had this protection on the walls,” Ven. Holly Ansett said about the protection. “Rinpoche has all the FPMT centers in Nepal displaying it.”

In related news, the website Pacifyearthquakes.org announced on May 17 that 1.6 million of the 1.8 million recitations of the Kshitigarbha long mantra have been accumulated to pacify earthquakes in California and around the world. Based on specific advice from Rinpoche, California Bay Area FPMT centers organized an effort to fulfill Rinpoche’s advice, which also included Tengyur recitations, Medicine Buddha pujas and eight Mahayana precepts accumulations. Students are still invited to recite the Kshitigarbha long mantra and contribute to the mantra count.

For more advice from Rinpoche on this topic, please see the page “Tsunami and Earthquakes”:
https://fpmt.org/teachers/zopa/advice/tsunami-and-earthquakes/

More information, photos and updates about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be found on Rinpoche’s webpage on FPMT.org. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and FPMT via email, sign up to FPMT News.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Mahayana Buddhist Association, Hong Kong, May 2016. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

On May 16, Ven. Roger Kunsang shared on his Twitter page this brief teaching from Lama Zopa Rinpoche:

“Lama Zopa; the real holiday is keeping the mind free of the eight worldly dharmas.”

Ven. Roger Kunsang, Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s assistant and CEO of FPMT Inc., shares Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent pith sayings on Ven. Roger’s Twitter page.

Video recordings from Rinpoche’s recent teachings at Mahayana Buddhist Association (Cham Tse Ling) in Hong Kong have just been added to the “Rinpoche Available Now” page on FPMT.org:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/

More information, photos and updates about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be found on Rinpoche’s webpage. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche via email, sign up to receive FPMT News

Tenzin Rigsel

Lama Zopa Rinpoche sent the following message upon the announcement that His Holiness the Dalai Lama officially recognized the three-year-old Tenzin Rigsel as the reincarnation of the beloved former abbot of Kopan Monastery Khensur Rinpoche Lama Lhundrup Rigsel.

My dear students seeking total elimination of suffering and completion of Buddhahood, and my dear friends,

This news is so great and encouraging to our minds, to develop Dharma wisdom and compassion to all sentient beings, whose minds are obscured and suffering, and to help with our body, speech and mind, and bring perfect peace and happiness in this world, at least.

This is just about one time that we have received this perfect human rebirth and met the Buddha Dharma, with the opportunity to learn and practice and to overcome the oceans of samsaric sufferings, by overcoming delusion and karma – including laziness, not laziness towards removing suffering and its causes, but laziness in Dharma practice and achieving enlightenment.

This is to inform you the ex-abbott of Kopan Monastery Lama Lhundrup, who is heart disciple of Lama Yeshe, who is kinder than all the three time Buddhas, including Buddha Vajradhara. Lama Lhundrup was invited by Lama Yeshe to look after Kopan Monastery and was the principal teacher of the monks and nuns, giving advice and looking after the Dharma discipline. Then after Lama Yeshe showed the aspect of passing away, Lama Lhundrup looked after the finances and with all his heart and life he looked after Kopan Monastery. It was from Kopan Monastery that FPMT started. Lama Lhundrup also dedicated and put effort into developing Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings in Kopan and in all of Nepal.

Now Lama Lhundrup has been recognized by Buddha Chenrezig His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who said, “Tenzin Rigsel to be recognized as a reincarnation of the late Lhundrup Rigsel comes out extremely positive.”

What made Lama Lhundrup to have this special reincarnation was his pure morality, compassion to sentient beings and wish to liberate all sentient being by spreading the teachings of Lama Tsongkhapa. I think this incarnation will be continually more and more beneficial as his life goes on and also as his lives go on.

Please everybody enjoy, especially the students in the East and the West.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

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.

You can read more about Tenzin Rigsel’s recognition on FPMT.org.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Rinchen Jangsem Ling, Malaysia, April 2016. Photo by Bill Kane.

During the Medicine Buddha retreat at Rinchen Jangsem Ling in Malaysia in April, Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave an exceptional teaching on emptiness over two sessions on April 14, which can be watched online with all of Rinpoche’s other teachings in Malaysia.

Here is a short excerpt from the lightly edited transcript of the teaching: 

“… I explained one night – night or day I don’t remember – that the I exists in mere name, merely labeled by the mind, by the valid mind, because there is a valid base, the aggregates. So the five aggregates we have, the association of that is the valid base, the aggregates, a valid base. The base to be labeled I, self, I, not this eye with which you can see things but the I, the self. And the ‘I’ is the label. The aggregates are the base to be labeled and the I is what is labeled on that. Those two do not exist separately but they exist differently. That is important to know. They do not exist separately like the self, the I, and the table, throne, or light. They do not exist separately from the aggregates but they exist differently: one is the base to be labeled and one, the I, is what is labeled on that. The I is also merely labeled by the valid mind. It exists in mere name, merely labeled by the valid mind, because there is a valid base. I, action, object, also object, what is the object? In reality it exists in mere name, merely labeled by the mind, by the valid mind, because there is a valid base. Like that the whole entire hell and enlightenment, samsara and nirvana, happiness and problems in everyday life, so everything, everything exists in mere name. What exists is in mere name, merely labeled by the mind.

“So it is explained, let me see if I can remember, what exists is explained in the Madhyamaka: that which does not receive harm from the absolute wisdom. So the real I, truly existent I, I existing from its own side, I existing by its nature, in our common language the real I, so that is what is totally empty. It does not exist at all. That real I receives harm from the absolute wisdom, the wisdom realizing absolute truth, emptiness only. It receives harm from that. Because that wisdom, absolute wisdom, that ultimate wisdom, sees the real I, what appears to us from beginningless rebirths up to now, from this morning, from birth, from beginningless rebirths, and you hundred percent without doubt you believe it, and you work for it, you believe and work for it, your body, speech, and mind works for the real I. Do you understand? For the real I.

“There are numberless buddhas and non-bodhisattva, numberless ordinary sentient beings, arhats, bodhisattvas, ordinary sentient beings, arhats, arya sangha, the ordinary sentient beings, they are numberless, numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, sura beings, asura beings, intermediate state beings. They are numberless, but you from beginningless rebirths up to now have been working only for the real I, working for the real I from beginningless rebirths, not only now, but it didn’t exist. You understand? But it didn’t exist, at all. You understand? That you have to know, to realize, to discover. …”

Watch Rinpoche teach on emptiness at Rinchen Jangsem Ling: 6 p.m. teaching (https://youtu.be/aNcQo1yBW7Y), 8 p.m. teaching (https://youtu.be/SK5Ibft87LI)

Free, on-demand videos of many of Rinpoche’s international teachings are made available on FPMT’s Rinpoche Available Now page.

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 during the long life puja for him at Amitabha Buddhist Centre, Singapore, March 13, 2016. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

The long life puja for Lama Zopa Rinpoche held in March at Amitabha Buddhist Centre (ABC) in Singapore brought FPMT students together from around the world. Ven. Roger Kunsang, CEO of FPMT, wrote of the puja, “[It] went very well. I think this was due to so many people making the effort to come, and so many making the effort to participate in some way in the puja. ABC staff and students made such an excellent effort in organizing and hosting the event.”

Amitabha Buddhist Centre recently published a short video called “Prelude to a Puja,” which highlights how remarkable the puja was and shares a small glimpse into the preparations that went into it.

Watch “Prelude to a Puja” on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/X7L4mZW_WBc

The long life puja for Rinpoche was offered by the entire FPMT organization to dispel any obstacles for Rinpoche this year based on advice from Khadro-la (Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drönme). More than 100 representatives from FPMT centers, project, services, and national and regional offices worldwide attended the puja and participated in the offering procession. The entire puja can be watched on FPMT’s YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd3YWIA0vLx_YFdzi_rVxmE3mLUfd1AUA

FPMT’s Long Life Puja Fund gives students an opportunity to support the long life pujas offered by FPMT to Lama Zopa Rinpoche and to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. To learn more about the benefits of long life pujas and the fund, and to make donations, please visit the Long Life Puja Fund page:
https://fpmt.org/projects/fpmt/long-life-puja/

More information, photos and updates about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be found on Rinpoche’s webpage on FPMT.org. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and FPMT via email, sign up to FPMT News.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, Italy, June 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Recently when Lama Zopa Rinpoche was visiting Sera Je Monastery, he was requested to help with a new elevator at Sera Lachi.  Sera Lachi is made up of Sera Je and Sera Mey Monasteries in southern India. 6,000 monks study between the two monasteries. 

The Sera Lachi monks. Photo courtesy of the Sera Lachi Facebook page.

Entrance to the new elevator at Sera Lachi.

The elevator will be used to bring His Holiness the Dalai Lama up to his rooms at Sera, which are located on the top floor. As His Holiness is now eighty years old, climbing all of those stairs has become difficult, and the monks wanted to have an elevator to easily bring His Holiness to his rooms and also to facilitate elderly monks getting to different levels of the building to access offices, rooms, etc. 

Rinpoche was very happy to make an offering of US$69,000 toward the cost of the elevator through a grant issued from the Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund. 

“Proper devotion to the guru, or virtuous friend, is the root of all success, from success in this life up to enlightenment, just as the trunk, branches, leaves and fruit of a tree depend upon its root,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches in The Heart of the Path. 

The new elevator installed at Sera Lachi.

“Or we can think that guru devotion is like the fuel in a car or a plane, without which the vehicle cannot take us where we want to go. Without guru devotion, nothing happens – no realizations, no liberation, no enlightenment – just as without the root of a tree there can be no trunk, branches, leaves, or fruit. Everything, up to enlightenment, depends on guru devotion.

“Guru devotion is the root not only of ultimate success, achieving full enlightenment and bringing sentient beings to the ultimate happiness of liberation and enlightenment, but also of temporary success and happiness. This practice is the foundation of the development of the whole path to enlightenment, as well as the foundation of all happiness. Since everything comes from the practice of guru devotion, it is called the root of the path. …”

You can read more of Rinpoche’s teachings on guru devotion in “Why Do We Need a Guru?,” the first chapter of the book The Heart of the Path: Seeing the Guru as Buddha by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, published by the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund enables Rinpoche’s compassionate service to others to flourish. All the offerings from the fund are used toward the creation of holy objects around the world; sponsoring young tulkus, high lamas and Sangha in India, Nepal, Tibet and the West;  supporting FPMT centers, projects and services; sponsoring Dharma retreats and events; funding animal liberations, and much more.