Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice

Lifelike statue of Lama Yeshe, FPMT’s founder, residing now at Vajrapani Institute, CA, USA.

Since 2011, Vajrapani Institute has been working with others to create a lifelike statue of FPMT’s precious founder, Lama Yeshe. In 2013, Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered US$10,000 toward the completion of his statue. 

In November of 2015, after an unusual array of obstacles and difficulties, the finished fiberglass statue arrived at Vajrapani Institute from Thailand, just in time for a visit by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Director Fabienne Pradelle explains, “When we opened the crate [after picking it up from the airport], Lama’s head appeared peaking up from the packing foam. Elaine Jackson burst into tears. We unpacked it and placed it in the Geshe House.” About the appearance of the statue, which depicts Lama Yeshe in a young aspect, Lama Zopa Rinpoche commented, “It is extremely good. He has become very young! In Mongolia there were statues made in China, very young looking, of Buddha Shakyamuni. The geshe said that it was very auspicious, looking young like this, so I think the young [appearance] is very auspicious.”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche meets the new statue of Lama Yeshe at Vajrapani Insitute, November 2015.

Two years previously, when Fabienne was checking the progress of the statue with Rinpoche, Rinpoche told her that the statue should go in Vajrapani Institute’s new gompa (yet to be built) surrounded by 999 smaller replicas to make a total of 1,000 Lama Yeshe statues. This will form the main altar of their new gompa. The smaller statues will be made from a mold which comes from a 3D scan of the main statue. With the 3D scan, they will be able to reduce the size of the statue to whatever height they determine. From that mold, they can also create smaller replicas (either in fiberglass or possibly bronze) to offer to benefactors.

Members of the Vajrapani community with the new statue of Lama Yeshe.

About building statues of one’s guru, Lama Zopa Rinpoche commented, “When you build a guru statue, you get the merit of having built numberless Buddha statues. Whether you build small or big you get unbelievable merit, the same merit as numberless statues of Buddha.” While Rinpoche offered to cover the cost of half of the smaller statues, he suggested that students should also join in the incredible merit of the statue creation by helping sponsor the other half. That is 500 opportunities to create the merit of building numberless Buddha statues! Vajrapani isn’t actively fundraising for this project yet, as they have to first build a prayer wheel, then a gompa, then an altar, in addition to other tasks before they will create the statues. But when the time approaches, all are welcome to join in and help fulfill this incredibly auspicious request from Lama Zopa Rinpoche. 

Vajrapani Institute wishes to thank Ven. Jamyang Wamgo who initiated the project and Elea Mideke who helped see this project through to completion and traveled to Thailand twice to work with the local artists. 

The Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund enables Rinpoche’s compassionate service to others to flourish. You can learn more about other beneficial activities this fund supports. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Maratika Caves, Nepal, February 2016. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Before traveling to Singapore, Rinpoche spent six days at Maratika Caves (also known as Haleshi), during the 15 Days of Miracles. This holy site is where Guru Rinpoche, with the wisdom-mother Mandarava, achieved immortal life through the practice of Amitayus.

Rinpoche has a strong connection with the Maratika Lama, Khenpo Karma Wangchuk, who takes care of the area. The Maratika Lama is the son of Lama Ngawang Chophel, who was a close disciple of the Lawudo Lama Kunsang Yeshe, Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s previous incarnation. (For more on this important pilgrimage site, see “The Caves of Maratika,” published in Mandala June-July 2008.)

Rinpoche went to Maratika to do some personal retreat. He did several session as well as other practices in the main cave at Maratika and circumabulated the mountain that contains the caves two times.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Sangha doing practice at Maratika Cave, Nepal, February 2016. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

There were several Kopan monks and a Kopan nun also at Maratika, doing long life retreat. Every year Kopan sponsors long life practice dedicated to His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s and Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s long lives. The monks were able to do a lot of practice with Rinpoche, who joined a number of the retreat sessions as well as led Lama Chöpa with them several times and at night led them in his room in protector prayers, “King of Prayers,” and so forth. Rinpoche gave much advice to them in Tibetan and it was very precious for them to have so much time with Rinpoche.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Osel Dorje Rinpoche at Maratika Caves, Nepal, February 2016. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Osel Dorje Rinpoche, a Nyingma lama, was at Maratika during Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s visit and spent some time with Rinpoche.

Three Western FPMT nuns also were doing long life practices for Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Maratika. They completed 100,000 butter lamp offerings over 21 days for Rinpoche’s long life along with many hundreds of Rinpoche’s light offering prayer as well as completing 1,000 tsog offerings, hanging prayer flags, and doing long life sutra recitation and Amitayus long life practice. 

Rinpoche also liberated three goats, two of which were sponsored by Ven. Roger Kunsang. Rinpoche took time to explain the motivation for liberating goats, and he blessed cords to go around the goats’ necks.

Rinpoche seemed very happy during his stay at Maratika. Since the visit was during the 15 Days of Miracles, the merit generated due to all the practices was multiplied a hundred million times. We can all rejoice in this!

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Sangha at Maratika Caves, Nepal, February 2016. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

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 at Maratika Caves, Nepal, February 2016. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

A student close to passing away wrote Lama Zopa Rinpoche saying she didn’t get to finish her preliminary practices and was not clear what to think and practice.

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

Please read Practicing the Five Powers Near the Time of Death. Not only read, but really try to understand it.

Regarding your question: it’s OK that you haven’t finished the practices. Focus now on practicing rejoicing, doing a mala of rejoicing in yourself, your own merit, and also a mala rejoicing in others, in all sentient beings’ merit. When you rejoice in all your merit, this means all your past, present and future merit. Then, the second one is all sentient beings’ past, present and future merit. The third is numberless buddhas’ and bodhisattvas’ merit – all their past, present and future merit. Rejoice!

Do one mala of rejoicing for each or even three malas. Do not only do them in the morning, but, if you can, also do them in the afternoon and evening time. You can do it like that three times a day or at least two times a day or at least once a day.

You mentioned you were reciting Migtsema mantra (Lama Tsongkhapa’s mantra). When you are doing this, do the whole Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga with a lam-rim prayer, such as “Foundation of All Good Qualities.”

Don’t worry about not completing the other practices, but try to keep any commitments you have taken from initiations.

The other most essential practice at this time is reciting the names of the 35 Buddhas and Vajrasattva practice. Pay more attention now to purifying negative karma collected from beginningless rebirths from having broken pratimoksha, bodhisattva and tantric vows (if you have taken them). It is so important to purify and the 35 Buddhas are very powerful. You can have your hands just in the mudra of prostration and then, if you have received the initiation, visualize your body as Thousand-Arm Chenrezig. Your body as the deity then fills the whole earth. Numberless Chenrezigs doing prostrations to the merit field. However many there are in the merit field, this is all one’s root guru. With that awareness, recite the names. It’s very, very important, as well as with Vajrasattva practice, to do the four opponent powers; it becomes very powerful purification. Without doing with the four opponent powers, then the practice is not so powerful.

In regard to rejoicing: without merit, there is no success, no happiness. There’s no enlightenment – the ultimate happiness – liberation from samsara, but also there’s not even temporary happiness in this life and the next life. Therefore, merit is sooooo precious, unbelievably precious. Think: “I have collected merit from beginningless rebirths up to now.” Rejoice how wonderful it is! How wonderful it is! Rejoicing means your mind feels happy.

You have to know that this human rebirth comes about just one time and this opportunity to rejoice comes almost just one time. Rejoice in the collected merit. It is also extremely rare, so rejoice in all the collected merit from beginningless rebirths up to now so that your mind feels happy. How wonderful it is! How wonderful!

The first time, when you rejoice in all the merit collected from beginningless rebirths up to now, it doubles. When you rejoice the second time, the merit is multiplied by four. The third time, it is multiplied by eight. All the merit collected from beginningless rebirths up to now – wow, wow, wow! So amazing! When you do one mala, can you imagine? When you do two malas or three malas? Wow, wow, wow, amazing, amazing, amazing! Many people may not know how rejoicing is so important. Even most Buddhist people may not know. Even those who practice Mahayana teachings may not know how important it is.

Lama Tsongkhapa said that to collect merit, the best practice is rejoicing. This was in Lama Tsongkhapa’s “Hymns of Experience of the Path.”

When you rejoice in your own merit, it is like this. So in daily life, we should rejoice. One is able to collect more merit. During the second time, when you rejoice is other sentient beings’ merit, by rejoicing in the merit of those whose level of mind is lower than you, you collect double the merit. If your level of mind is the same as theirs, then you collect the same amount of merit. If their level of mind is higher than yours, then however much merit is collected by them, you get half.

For example, I used to explain to people that there is the Maitreya Project that would be 50 stories high if it were built. And there would be not just that large statue, but there would be many statues inside and so many statues outside. If somebody comes along and rejoices in the merit and if that person’s level of mind is higher than ours, then that person collects double the merit. So however much merit we collect, that person collects double the merit. If that person has the same level of mind and then she rejoices, she gets the same merit as we get having built the main statue and all the other statues. If her level of mind is lower than ours, then that person collects half the merit that we collect having built the statue.

For example, if one who doesn’t have bodhichitta rejoices in one bodhisattva, one gets half of the merit that bodhisattva collects in one day in that one second of rejoicing. Without rejoicing, if you are going to try and collect that much merit, it takes 13,000 years. This is according to Dechen Pabongka Rinpoche in the Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. So, by rejoicing for one second – even if you don’t have bodhichitta – you collect so much merit. It’s unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable!

There are numberless sentient beings whose level of mind is lower than yours, numberless sentient beings whose level of mind is the same as yours, and numberless sentient beings whose level of mind is higher than yours. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow! When you rejoice, so much merit is collected so quickly and that means more purification; it means quicker freedom from the oceans of samsaric sufferings – not only from cancer – but from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and delusion and karma, and quicker achievement of peerless happiness, the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations: full enlightenment.

It is so important to know how to practice Dharma. I am only talking about rejoicing, explaining how to practice – it is so, so important. For example, there could be one person who lives 100 years – even a Buddhist who relied on Buddha, Dharma, Sangha and practiced the Mahayana teachings – but who doesn’t know about the important practice of rejoicing. However, even if you only live one day but know how to practice rejoicing – wow, wow, wow! The merit collected in that day is so precious. It’s unbelievable, unbelievable, most unbelievable – like skies filled with a billion dollars, filled with wish-granting jewels. It’s more than that. Skies filled with gold, filled with wish-granting jewels is nothing compared to the merit created. It is unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable – can you imagine? Merely owning gold, wish-granting jewels, and zillions of dollars cannot help you to be free from the oceans of samsaric sufferings.

Please think about this and read this over and over so that you are really familiar with it.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

Scribed by Ven. Holly Ansett, Tso Pema, 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. Sign up to receive news and updates.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at the Light of the Path Retreat, North Carolina, US, 2014. Photo by Roy Harvey.

“The daily activities that you are doing, the point is to make them most beneficial for sentient beings, a cause for enlightenment, a cause for oneself to attain omniscience so that one can liberate sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment. Make the activities that you normally do in daily life, anyway – for survival and so forth – make them most beneficial. Make them not only become Dharma, but the purest Dharma, the cause of enlightenment to achieve the cessation of all mistakes of mind and complete all the qualities, the highest success,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches in Living in the Path, an FPMT online and center-based program drawn exclusively from Rinpoche’s lam-rim teachings.

Living in the Path draws many of its teachings from Rinpoche’s Light of the Path retreats. Registration for the next Light of the Path retreat, scheduled for August 14-28, 2016, and organized by Kadampa Center in the United States, has just opened. 

In order to prepare for the Light of the Path retreat, which will be made available thought FPMT’s Livestream channel, FPMT centers and students are encouraged to start doing the Living in the Path program via FPMT’s Online Learning Center. Many modules are available for free. If an FPMT center would like to offer the Living in the Path as a facilitated course, they can contact FPMT’s Foundation Program Coordinator at fpc@fpmt.org for more information.

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 Maratika Cave in Nepal, February 2016. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

On February 27, Lama Zopa Rinpoche began teaching at Amitabha Buddhist Centre in Singapore by giving teachings in preparation for giving refuge. The next day, Rinpoche gave teachings while leading a puja of 1,000 offerings to Maitreya. 

Rinpoche’s public teachings and motivational talks are being webcast live on FPMT’s Livestream page. Rinpoche will teach and give initiations at Amitabha Buddhist Centre on the following days:

• March 2-4, at 7:30 p.m. Singapore time (GMT+8)
• March 5-6, at 4:00 p.m.
• March 9-11, at 7:30 p.m.
• And on March 13, at 9:00 a.m., Rinpoche’s Singapore visit concludes with FPMT’s official long life puja for Rinpoche

Recordings of Rinpoche’s recent teachings in Singapore are already available. Please check the FPMT Livestream page often to find the most up-to-date schedule.

Before arriving in Singapore, Rinpoche had been in Nepal, where he visited Maratika Cave and Kopan Monastery.

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 and attendant Ven. Sangpo blessing newly rescued goats, Maratika, India, February 2016. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

On February 22, Ven. Roger Kunsang shared on Twitter this photo of Lama Zopa Rinpoche “blessing goats after saving their lives” in Maratika, Nepal, site of the famed Maratika Caves associated with Padmasambhava and long life. 

Rinpoche regularly preforms animal liberations, saving animals in threat of being killed and exposing them to Dharma to benefit their future lives.

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. (You can also read them on Ven. Roger’s Facebook 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. Benefiting animals directly is one of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Vast Visions for the FPMT organization.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, November 2015. Photo by Bill Kane.

Rinpoche Available Now (RAN), FPMT’s initiative to make Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s most current teachings directly available to all students, has just released “Teachings from the Kopan November Course 2015,” with over 18 hours of video recorded at the famous Kopan November Course in Nepal, a one-month lam-rim course established by FPMT founder Lama Yeshe and current spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche in 1971.

For those unable to watch video, RAN also makes available MP3 audio recordings of the teachings and helpful transcripts to make listening easier.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Kopan Monastery during the November Course, Nepal, November 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

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, Sera Monastery, India, December 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

FPMT International Office has just published the FPMT Annual Review 2015: Serving the World with a Bodhichitta Attitude as a PDF and as an ezine. Please enjoy Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s letter to FPMT students and supporters taken from this year’s review:

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

From Lama Tsongkhapa’s “Three Principal Aspects of the Path”:

Even if renunciation has been developed, 
If it is not possessed by the mind of enlightenment 
It does not become the cause of the perfect bliss of unsurpassed enlightenment. 
Therefore the wise generate the supreme mind of enlightenment.

Swept away by the current of the four powerful rivers, 
Tied by the tight bonds of karma, so hard to undo, 
Caught in the iron net of self-grasping, 
Completely enveloped by the total darkness of ignorance, 

Endlessly reborn in cyclic existence, 
Ceaselessly tormented by the three sufferings –
Thinking that all mothers are in such a condition, 
Generate the supreme mind of enlightenment. 

First of all, we have all experienced this numberless times. Numberless times we have suffered like this, from beginningless time and will continue to unless one realizes the true suffering, the true cause of suffering, the true cessation of suffering and the true path. If one doesn’t get to actualize the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, then one will have to experience these sufferings of samsara numberless times and endlessly. So that means being in the ocean of suffering of the six realms. Already we have experienced it numberless times from beginningless lives, and we will have to experience this numberless times without end.

This is so terrifying, most terrifying, most terrifying! To have to be reborn in samsara again, even one more time, it is most terrifying. To be in samsara even for one more day, even one hour, even one millisecond, it is most horrible, most terrifying, if you realize that samsara is only in the nature of suffering and that being in samsara is like being in the midst of molten iron – the very hot, red, iron fire.

We have been hallucinating in samsara, looking at it as pleasurable. The suffering we experience now in samsara is nothing compared to the suffering of numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless suras, numberless asuras and numberless intermediate state beings, not only what they are suffering right now but also what they have suffered numberless times from beginningless rebirths.

Even if renunciation has been developed, 
If it is not possessed by the mind of enlightenment 
It does not become the cause of the perfect bliss of unsurpassed enlightenment. 
Therefore the wise generate the supreme mind of enlightenment.

Swept away by the current of the four powerful rivers, 
Tied by the tight bonds of karma, so hard to undo, 
Caught in the iron net of self-grasping, 
Completely enveloped by the total darkness of ignorance, 

Similarly sentient beings have experienced this suffering numberless times, the oceans of suffering of the six realms. They haven’t received a perfect human rebirth and haven’t met a perfectly qualified Mahayana guru. Some have, but their number is nothing compared to numberless sentient beings who haven’t received a perfect human rebirth, met the Buddhadharma and met a perfectly qualified Mahayana guru who reveals the unmistaken path. So like this, they will have to suffer again in the ocean of suffering of the six realms, again and again, numberless times, endlessly in samsara.

It is said by the great yogi Heruka Kyabje Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo in “Calling the Guru from Afar”:

Thinking of the plight of my pitiful old mothers, pervasive as space, 
Fallen amidst the fearful ocean of samsara and tormented there – reminds me of you, Lama.

Therefore, Lama, please bless me to generate in my mental continuum 
Effortless experience of the profound three principles of the path and the two stages.

Here you can understand what to do, what is the best way to help sentient beings, who are numberless, even to help just one sentient being; so this is the best thing. Here the FPMT organization’s main effort is to create the causes for sentient beings to have realizations of the gradual path to enlightenment and to actualize the gradual path to enlightenment, the gradual method and the gradual wisdom and to achieve dharmakaya and rupakaya, for numberless sentient beings, for every maggot, for every tick, for every mosquito and for every single slug. So that comes from practice, and to practice, first you have to learn the Buddhadharma. So for those who can, then you learn the most extensive philosophy, sutra and tantra, lam-rim and then tantric subjects of your own deity and then the essence of what the guru has taught from the holy mouth.

So like the Kadampa Geshes teach according to the different levels of intelligence, the different capacities, so there are three ways of studying. Similarly we offer that, different levels according to different levels of intelligence and capacity, in order to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings, to be able to work perfectly without the slightest mistake for sentient beings. This is why we offer the Masters Program, the Basic Program, Discovering Buddhism, Buddhism in a Nutshell, Living in the Path and so on, this is besides Universal Education for Compassion and Wisdom. Then also we offer social services, such as hospices and many other services. Here it is not only to help the body, but mainly to help the mind. Then in all the centers since they have started, there have been lam-rim teachings continually, offering the essence of the path to enlightenment.

The whole point of FPMT is to bring sentient beings to full enlightenment, to the peerless happiness – the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations. So this is what FPMT has been trying to do, and this is the function of FPMT International Office, to help in that, and also the function of all the centers, projects and services, to be able to benefit in this way to the numberless sentient beings.

When a person has cancer, diabetes or leprosy, but then the person’s nose is crooked, so they try to fix it with plastic surgery, but that doesn’t help cure the cancer, diabetes or leprosy. Or they try to make the wrinkles on their face disappear by spending lots of money, but this doesn’t do anything for the life threatening diseases. People spend so much money and time on something really unimportant, such small things, and have no idea at all, no knowledge at all about the suffering of death, sickness and old age. They don’t know where this suffering comes from, which is karma and delusions, nothing is done for that, nothing is known about that. The root of samsara is the ignorance holding the I as truly existent, as real from its own side, while it is not, while it is totally empty from its own side, from beginningless time. Even having tantra realizations and bodhichitta realizations is not enough, but it is only with wisdom directly realizing emptiness that can directly eliminate the root of samsara – ignorance.

Similarly you don’t have a rhinoceros horn growing from your head or a white-faced monkey’s long tail growing behind you.

So the purpose of the FPMT organization’s existence, it is NOT like that.

Thank you very, very, very much, from the bottom of my heart numberless thanks, by joining my two palms together – numberless thanks and I pray for the success of all the students, all the benefactors, all the volunteers, all the staffs, everybody. Thank you to all the directors of the centers and to every student. We are all here to liberate the numberless sentient beings, our pitiful mother sentient beings, to free them from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and to bring them to peerless happiness – buddhahood: the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrapped himself in a blanket to dictate his letter for the 2015 FPMT Annual Review and playfully posed for a few photos. “It was very cold,” explained Ven. Holly, who was scribe for the letter, which was composed during Rinpoche’s stay at Tso Pema, India, in January 2016.

Learn more about FPMT International Office and find past years’ Annual Reviews at https://fpmt.org/fpmt/international-office/.

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 Tso Pema, India, February 2016. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche recorded a 20-minute video Losar greeting for the students and supporters of the FPMT organization during his visit to Tso Pema (Rewalsar) in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, where Rinpoche stayed for a few weeks in January and February. 

“My dear students and all my dear brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers – everybody – thank you very much,” Rinpoche says in the video message. “For the Monkey Year, for this new year, I’m offering from my heart greetings and a billion, zillion, trillion, skies of offerings to everybody. Please, everybody, enjoy bliss – meaningful happiness – in the new year. …”

Watch “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Message, Losar 2016” on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/riwytpShUlY

In the video, Rinpoche sits between two snow lion statues on the roof of the building where he completed some personal retreat. Rinpoche purchased the statues from a Tibetan artist’s shop in Tso Pema and is offering them to Tushita Meditation Centre in McLeod Ganj, which is about 100 miles (160 kilometers) to the west and north by car. “I thought I’d send the snow lions to Tushita on my behalf and they can lead meditation and talk about the mind to Westerns and Indians,” Rinpoche said jokingly about the statues.

During his trip to Tso Pema, Rinpoche also visited the sacred sites there associated with Padmasambhava as well as received rare oral transmissions on monastic discipline.

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 visited the 110-foot Padmasambhava statue at Tso Pema, Himachal Pradesh, India, January 2016. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche recently spent several weeks at Tso Pema (Lotus Lake, also known as Rewalsar) in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Rinpoche went to Tso Pema to receive rare oral transmissions on vinaya (monastic discipline) from the abbot of Zigar Monastery, a Kagyü monastery in Tso Pema. Rinpoche also spent time doing personal retreat and circumambulating the lake.

Tso Pema is closely associated with the 8th-century Indian Buddhist master Padmasambhava, or Guru Rinpoche. According to the story, Padmasambhava angered the king of the area by teaching Dharma to his daughter. The king had Padmasambhava burned alive in a pyre that created great clouds of smoke. But after several days, a lake appeared in the same spot and Padmasambhava was sitting in the middle of the lake on a lotus and the king came to see the error of his ways.

There are many holy sites in the area, which Rinpoche visited, including the cave where Padmasambhava meditated, Zangdok Palri Palace Monastery, and the 110-foot (34-meter) tall Padmasambhava statue overlooking the lake.

Tso Pema, Himachal Pradesh, India, January 2016. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

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 a copy of his new book ‘How to Enjoy Death,’ Osel Labrang, Sera Monastery, India, December 2015

Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s much anticipated book How to Enjoy Death: Preparing to Meet Life’s Final Challenge without Fear is now available through the FPMT Foundation Store. The beautifully printed book is a practical guide for students on how to best help loved ones and themselves during the death process.

“We Buddhists all know about death and impermanence, but when death comes into our lives we often panic and don’t know what to do to help,” said Ven. Robina Courtin, who edited the book. “Rinpoche lays out all the instructions so clearly, one step at a time, for how to help our loved ones: what to do in the months and weeks before death, what to do in the hours before death, at the time the breath stops, and in the three days as well as the 49 days after death, including transforming our loved one’s ashes into a holy object.”

In addition to Rinpoche’s advice, How to Enjoy Death includes the mantras, prayers and practices to be said and done, making it a valuable resource. 

“The essential point of all these practices is not just to help our loved ones die well, but to help them get a good rebirth – everything is geared to that,” Ven. Robina stressed. “As Rinpoche says, ‘Helping our loved ones at the time of death is the best service we can offer them, our greatest gift. Why? Because death is the most important time of life: it’s at death that the next rebirth is determined.’”

Find links to many resources for time of death on FPMT.org/death.

The FPMT Foundation Store distributes Dharma materials around the world and supports the work of FPMT International Office. All proceeds from this shop are used to further the charitable mission of FPMT, Inc. Visit https://shop.fpmt.org.

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

Lama Zopa Rinpoche near Lawudo Retreat Centre, Nepal, April 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

“Many problems arise when our motivation is the selfish mind, concentrated in our heart,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches in The Power of Compassion, a 2006 Malaysia teaching now available through the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. “The main achievement is our own happiness, not others. When we do that, then there’s carelessness to others, no concern to others. Then those other people who are doing work for us become dissatisfied, they become unhappy. They don’t get treated well, they don’t get respect, then they become unhappy and they leave, or they create trouble for us. The other workers in the company or business create problems, they give harm to us, so things like that.

“Because of our selfish mind, then our actions are unkind and others become unhappy. Then we get problems, trouble. This effect is the consequence of the selfish mind. We receive the problem, but it is originally coming from our selfish mind. It becomes a circle, like that.

“Like this, the problem increases more and more. Then after some time there are court cases and people are suing each other, then you lose all the money and all these things. There are debts and all this, then the problems get built up in the life, like that. So that’s one explanation.

“Even if you become a millionaire or a billionaire, because of the selfish mind, the strong desire wanting more, better things – you want more, you want to be more rich than other wealthy people in the world – there is no ending. You engage in illegal things and many other things, then after some time, other people find out. Then all the people in the company use that to sue you. They become unhappy and sue you back. Your life ends up with a bad reputation in the world, in the newspaper, on TV. Even after you become a millionaire or a billionaire, you end up with a bad reputation and end up with life in prison.

“All these are shortcomings of the ego. This is a reality [recognized by] any religion, it doesn’t matter whichever religion it is. This is reality. Everybody can understand that.”

Find the complete The Power of Compassion on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/power-compassion

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.