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Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and Advice
Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Dagri Rinpoche near Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, Pomaia, Italy, June 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
“‘Calling the Guru from Afar’ was composed by Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo, the great yogi of Heruka Chakrasamvara, which is a manifestation of the kind, compassionate Shakyamuni Buddha,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche instructed during a teaching on guru devotion given in Singapore in 1992 and recently posted on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. “‘Calling the Guru from Afar’ combines guru yoga practice and lam-rim. It is a very effective way to do direct meditation on the three principal aspects of the path and the two stages of highest yoga tantra, because this prayer came from this great yogi Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo’s own experiences. …
“On the morning of the New Year I think it is very good, either with the family together in front of the Buddha or at the center, to read the prayer at the end of the Chöd practice. This prayer describes Buddha’s lives as a bodhisattva and his practice of the six paramitas. He gave his life to other sentient beings. When he was a king he gave his whole family and all his possessions to other sentient beings. He also made charity of his body to a family of starving tigers. He gave his life to blood-sucking spirits and made a prayer that the spirits become his disciples in their next life. This is why these spirits became the four monks to whom Buddha gave his first teaching, the four noble truths, in Sarnath. Before, they were spirits that sucked blood from the Buddha in his past life as a bodhisattva; he used that to dedicate that he would be able to give teachings to them in their next life.
“There are many stories there in that prayer. When there was an epidemic disease and many hundreds of thousands of people were dying, the bodhisattva manifested as a particular fish whose flesh became the medicine to cure that disease. By eating the fish, the people in that country then recovered from that epidemic. At another time, when many hundreds of thousands of fish were dying, in a past life as a bodhisattva, Buddha recited a particular buddha’s name and liberated them all.
“There are many different stories of the Buddha’s past lives as a bodhisattva, where other sentient beings with vicious attitudes harmed Buddha, but in return he only benefited them. It is very good for the family to read together such stories in front of Buddha together, and then to be able to live life with a sincere, open heart toward all other sentient beings, thus to make your life beneficial. That is the best way to make your life happy and to find satisfaction now and at the time of death. It benefits everybody – the family and all other sentient beings – for enlightenment and everything else.
“This practice is very beneficial and could either be done with the family or at the center. After taking refuge and generating bodhichitta, the four immeasurables, the seven-limb prayer, and a short mandala offering, you could then read these short bodhisattva life stories. It is a very good way of reminding us how to live our life. It reminds us of the purpose of life and how to make our life beneficial for all sentient beings. It then makes the New Year a very good new year and very meaningful.
You can read the complete teaching and find links to other advice on “Calling the Guru from Afar” on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. FPMT Education Services offers an audio recording of Lama Zopa Rinpoche chanting the prayer as well as the practice text.
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 at Tushita Mahayana Meditation Centre, New Dehli, India, January 2015. Photo courtesy of Tushita Mahayana Meditation Centre’s Facebook page.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave teachings and an oral transmission of the Golden Light Sutra at Tushita Mahayana Meditation Centre in New Dehli, India, between January 25-31. Ven. Sarah Thresher, who was there, shared the following:
“Rinpoche gave five teachings on the Golden Light Sutra. Ven. Kabir Saxena requested the transmission a few days after Rinpoche arrived, and Rinpoche immediately agreed. We were all very happy because of the enormous benefits the sutra has. In fact, Rinpoche was giving the transmission when US President Barack Obama was in Delhi attending Indian Republic Day. The idea was that Rinpoche would start the transmission and continue whenever he passes through Delhi. So far we reached into Chapter 7, ‘The Four Great Kings.’
“Attendance was very good, despite the late hours, and Rinpoche preceded each day of transmission with a teaching. The gompa [at Tushita Mahayana Meditation Centre] has been newly painted and decorated and it was full with Indians, Westerners and Tibetans. Most of the people attending lived in Delhi and Rinpoche commented on the new surge of interest in Buddhism that is now taking place with more and more young educated Indians taking a serious interest in Buddhist studies as they look for answers to the problems they have in their lives.”
Recitation of the Golden Light Sutra is one of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Vast Visions for FPMT. FPMT Education Services has created a resource page to help you learn more about and start reciting the Golden Light Sutra.
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.
Altar detail at Kachoe Dechen Ling, Aptos, California, 2014. Photo by Chris Majors.
“At the beginning, when the Sangha was flourishing, Lama Yeshe got all the monks and nuns to take turns to cook for the other Sangha members. Ven. Pemo didn’t know how to cook, so when it was her turn, she put some vegetables in oil and then served them raw,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche said in November 2014 to Ven. Ailsa Cameron.
“If you know how to make food, it is very beneficial. The highest benefit – bringing great purification of negative karma and delusions and collecting merit – is to offer delicious food to the guru. You can also make so many people happy by making delicious food for them.
“So, bodhisattvas learn anything to benefit sentient beings.”
Scribed by Ven. Ailsa Cameron, November 2014, Bendigo, Australia. Lightly edited by Michael Jolliffe for inclusion on FPMT.org.
More advice from Rinpoche can be found on the page “Advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche” on FPMT.org.
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 Lama Zopa Rinpoche News.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Amitabha celebration day, Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington, US, August 2014. Photo by Ven. Sherab.
In August 2014, Lama Zopa Rinpoche spent some time at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land in the United States. While there, he explained on camera some of the ways he and Buddha Amitabha Pure Land residents benefit local birds with a very special bird feeder and bird bath.
The roof of the large bird feeder has painted on it the mantra from the sutra Pagpa Chulung Rolpai Do, which purifies 100,000 eons of the birds’ negative karma just by seeing it, and the Lotus Pinnacle of Amoghapasha mantra, which purifies 1,000 eons of the birds’ negative karma when they pass underneath it for food. (You can find these mantras embroidered on the Precious Mantra Hat available through the Foundation Store.)
Just offering the birds seed blessed with mantras is incredibly helpful, Rinpoche commented, because the blessings benefit the birds’ bodies and minds and it means that the birds look for less insects to eat, which not only protects the insects from death, but also reduces the amount of killing karma the birds accumulate.
The bird bath is similarly beneficial as it is filled with water blessed by a mantra of Padmasambhava and crushed mani pills to help the birds achieve enlightenment.
At the end of the video, Rinpoche mentions that residents at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land also make charity of food and Dharma to the various ant nests around the property using How to Make Charity to Ants, a text compiled by Lama Zopa Rinpoche and inspired by a text written by Ngulchu Dharmabhadra, a well-known yogi and lineage lama.
Find more videos of Lama Zopa Rinpoche 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.
Photos of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Lama Yeshe on the throne next to Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the retreat in Australia, October 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
“Up to now, what we have been able to accomplish, benefiting this world in various ways, is, I think, basically through the kindness of the guru: His Holiness, who is the only object of refuge of all sentient beings and the originator of all sentient beings’ happiness; and then, secondly, the founder of this organization, Lama Yeshe, whose holy name is extremely rare to mention, who is kinder than all the three time buddhas; and then the kindness of many other gurus,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche has taught. “So, what we have been able to accomplish so far depends on how much guru devotion practice we did correctly, it is the result of that.”
These days, many FPMT students and students of Lama Zopa Rinpoche have not had the opportunity to see teachings from FPMT founder Lama Yeshe and to develop a connection with Lama Yeshe. Fortunately, there are videos available to watch online and on DVD. The Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive offers videos of Lama Yeshe on their website and on YouTube.
WATCH VIDEO: Lama Yeshe “Making the Most of Your Life”
In addition, there are many videos online of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
So as we remember the kindness of these teachers, we can imagine in our minds their gestures and voices in addition to their images.
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 reciting the names of the 35 Buddhas during a long life puja at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, December 2104. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
In late November and early December 2014, Lama Zopa Rinpoche taught as part of the annual month-long Kopan course at Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Rinpoche’s teachings covered a variety of subjects. What follows is an excerpt from a lightly edited transcript and video extract:
How to take care of your life? How to take care of your life? Life used for anger, to harm others, to
harm others; that is what in the world people do. You use your life, your intelligence, all that you
learned from school, from kindergarten, school, college, university, your human body, that which you have been taking care of for years and years, from childhood time, your education and your wealth, you use them to harm others. You live your life for anger, to work for anger, to destroy the world, to harm others. Then you live your life with attachment, then also you harm other sentient beings. Then ignorance harms, of course, yourself and sentient beings. By following those three poisonous minds you harm yourself, you harm others. So much suffering. So much suffering.
Now, the way of taking care of life, the correct way of taking care of your life, is to be non-attached – a positive mind of non-anger, non-ignorance, and non-attachment should be there. So there is taking care of your life with satisfied, inner happiness, a fully satisfied mind renouncing samsara. A fully satisfied mind, a totally happy, fully satisfied mind of renunciation of this life and renunciation of samsara – this is taking care of your life with renunciation. …
Watch “How to Take Care of Your Life” on YouTube.
You can find more MP3 recordings, transcripts and short video excerpts of Rinpoche’s teachings from the Kopan course 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 Kopan Monastery, Nepal, December 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
In December 2014, Lama Zopa Rinpoche taught as part of the annual month-long Kopan course at Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Rinpoche taught on a variety of subjects, including how all things are “merely labeled by the mind.” What follow are a lightly edited transcript and video extract, made for Rinpoche Available Now, a new project from FPMT.org to bring Rinpoche’s major teachings to the public as they happen:
Another example. Okay. A design like this on a blackboard, a design like that is A. Okay? So you see A. You are taught A and you see A. You see A. But now go back, now you go back to your childhood time, now you back to your childhood time, to your childhood time before you were taught “This is A.” You go back to your childhood time before you learned A. So what you see at first is a design like this on the blackboard. Okay? It is just a design. You don’t see that “This is A.” You may be seeing A but you are not seeing “This is A.” You are not seeing that, you are not yet taught that. Because you are not taught that yet, so you see a design like this. Okay? Then your parents or teacher, somebody, introduces you, labels “A.” The person labeled “This is A.” They labeled it, they named it, from the mind. They taught you, so you believe it. Before that you see the base, you are not seeing “This is A.” You understand? It is very clear. You don’t see “This is A,” you see the base, just the base of the A. When you are taught by your parents or a teacher who label “This is A,” labeled by their mind “This is A,” then you follow, you believe that. Then your mind labels A. Then your mind merely… I want to add this one [word] even now: it is not only labeled but merely labeled A. Merely labeled A. Merely labeled A. Then after that… Your mind merely labeled A on that base that is like this, then after that, then there is the appearance of A. Then there is the appearance of A to you. Then you see A. Only then you see A. So your seeing A is dependent on first your mind labeling A, your mind merely imputing A, and that depends on somebody teaching you, introducing you, with their mind merely labeling A. So A came from your mind. You see? If you are not taught, if your mind does not merely label A, you don’t see “This is A,” at all. You see? That’s clear. Now the A that appears, that you see, came from your mind. Like that all phenomena came from your mind. Okay?
Watch “The Letter ‘A’: All Phenomena Come from the Mind” on YouTube.
You can find more MP3 recordings, transcripts and short video excerpts of Rinpoche’s teachings from the Kopan course 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 at Vulture Peak, India, March 2014. Photo by Andy Melnic.
“My very dear most kind precious [student],” Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrote to a student who had written to Rinpoche about his book How to Practice Dharma, published by the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. “Skies of thanks for your discovering Dharma, trying to practice Dharma with every action. Thank you very, very much. That’s the real Dharma. Even in the monasteries studying so much extensive philosophy, but sometimes Dharma gets left out for some people. Looking like practicing Dharma, but not practicing Dharma.
“It is so precious what you have discovered, what you experienced. You discovered Dharma,
what Dharma is. Numberless thanks again.”
You can read the students letter and Rinpoche’s response as a PDF. More advice from Rinpoche can be found on the page “Advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche” on FPMT.org.
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 Lama Zopa Rinpoche News.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Bangalore, India, March 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
“So, what is it that brings all that [Dharma] happiness?” Lama Zopa Rinpoche asks in The Joy of Compassion, a free ebook from Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. “It’s cherishing sentient beings; living your life cherishing sentient beings. Not that I actually do this myself, but intellectually, it’s what I think. Cherish sentient beings first; put enlightenment second.
“Why do I say put enlightenment second? For example, when you go into the kitchen, you’re looking for food, not crockery; your motivation is not to get a plate but delicious food. You go into the kitchen with food on your mind. But although your main motivation is to get food, you do need something to put it on – unless you can carry soup in your hands! Anyway, I’m joking again.
“Of course, enlightenment is extremely important because without it you cannot work perfectly for sentient beings. You cannot be a perfect guide, knowing, seeing directly, every sentient being’s mind, level of karma, intelligence, wishes and characteristics, as well as the various methods that suit their individual dispositions. But what should be in your heart is sentient beings as the reason for your attaining enlightenment. The first priority in your heart should be the happiness of sentient beings; sentient beings in your heart. What should be the first thing in your heart, in your life, the goal of your life? Sentient beings.”
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.
Buddha statue at Kachoe Dechen Ling, California, US. Photo by Chris Majors.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered this advice in a letter to a student who offered gold to 1,000 buddha statues at Kopan Monastery in Nepal:
I thought to tell of some benefits.
In the time of Buddha Kashyapa, one person offered gold to a cement elephant and was born having an elephant that was gold and had golden kaka. The king at that time confiscated the elephant, at which time the elephant dissolved into the ground, while for the man, his karma was to get another, similar elephant.
Another benefit of offering gold is to be born with golden colored skin. Like that, unbelievable benefits. Unbelievable like that.
If someone offers a small flower or rice to a Buddha statue, a stupa or scripture, then the benefit extends from then up to enlightenment. Amazing, amazing. It is said in the sutra Piled Flowers, on top of that benefit, you achieve ultimate happiness – liberation from the causes of delusion and karma – and on top of that, full enlightenment – all the realizations and omniscient mind. After this, then you liberate numberless hell beings, pretas, animals, humans, suras and asuras from the ocean of samsaric sufferings and bring them to full enlightenment. When all beings are brought to enlightenment, only then are all the results of offering achieved. So by offering gold, then wow, wow, wow. Can you imagine the result! From only a tiny offering (of a flower or rice) so much benefit is received due to that statue, etc. So really, holy objects are wish-fulfilling gems – so unbelievably precious.
Another story: In ancient times in India, there were four fully ordained monks, fully ordained but not aryas with the direct realization of emptiness. One person offered food to these monks and was later reborn as King Kashika. But now you are offering gold so can you imagine the result. Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow!
Another benefit, in order for you to get an idea, comes from the Sutra of the Mudra, Developing the Power of Devotion. In that it says that someone who merely sees the image of a Buddha, great or small, immediately creates numberless merits. The food of the devas is nectar and their cloth is extremely precious – all the wealth of the world is not enough to buy their ornaments. Compared to making an offering of devas’ food and cloth 100 times to solitary realizers equaling the sand grains of the universe for 100 eons, to just look at the statue of Buddha has unimaginably more benefits. Wow! Wow! So imagine now offering gold. And offering has far, far, far more merit than seeing Buddha.
Now you see why we build big statues that people from all over the world come to see. You see how the benefit is there.
Thank you very much for your understanding,
Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Scribing, editing and any mistakes made belong to Tenzin Namdrol, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, December 2012.
You can find more advice from FPMT Spiritual Director Lama Zopa Rinpoche on FPMT.org.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Vens. Roger Kunsang and Sangpo, Italy, June 2014. Photo by Matteo Passigato.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave teachings in New Delhi, India on January 23-26. On January 24, Ven. Roger Kunsang shared this on his Twitter page:
Lama Zopa: happiness or unhappiness come from the mind. If self-cherishing mind, then problems; if mind cherishing others, then happiness.
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 homepage. If you’d like to receive news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche via email, sign up to Lama Zopa Rinpoche News.
Kangaroo statue with mantras, Bendigo, Australia, December 2014. Photo by Ven. Tenzin Namgyal.
While Lama Zopa Rinpoche was in the Bendigo-area for the CPMT 2014 meeting and the retreat that followed, he added mantras to statues of an elephant and a kangaroo and wrote text for many signs to be placed next to those statues and others. The sign at right reads:
I am an Australian kangaroo, I am not sure which part I come from maybe Kangaroo Island.
This is the first time I have seen the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion that is being built for the first time in Australia.
I am a most fortunate kangaroo I am able to see the stupa by just one luck [look].
I prostrate to the stupa to fully enlighten sentient beings.
ON MY LEFT SIDE IS THE MANTRA OF COMPASSIONATE BUDDHA KUAN YIN
GENERATE COMPASSION TO ALL SENTIENT BEINGS FREE THE NUMBERLESS SENTIENT BEINGS FROM OCEANS OF SAMSARIC SUFFERING AND BRING THEM TO ULTIMATE HAPPINESS, GREAT LIBERATION & GREAT BLISS.
ON MY RIGHT SIDE IS A MANTRA BUDDHA MENTIONED IN SUTRA CHU LONG BAI DO ANYONE JUST MERELY SEEING THIS, 100,000 AEONS OF NEGATIVE KARMA WILL BE PURIFIED.
So therefore I am the most happy sentient being. I want, and I can, enlighten not only Bendigo but Australia, the whole world and all numberless six realm sentient beings.
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.