Lama Zopa Rinpoche full length teachings

In this new thought transformation teaching video, Lama Zopa Rinpoche offers insight into the nature of depression and provides methods to reduce it. Rinpoche emphasizes that our mistaken view of how the I exists plants the seeds for depression. By looking into how our mind labels things good and bad, when nothing exists from its own side, we can begin to see that there's no basis for depression t...

In this new thought transformation teaching video, Lama Zopa Rinpoche offers insight into the nature of depression and provides methods to reduce it. Rinpoche emphasizes that our mistaken view of how the I exists plants the seeds for depression. By looking into how our mind labels things good and bad, when nothing exists from its own side, we can begin to see that there's no basis for depression t...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues offering teachings specifically intended for ordained Sangha, but everyone is welcome to benefit from Rinpoche's advice. He begins this video teaching, recorded on August 19, 2021, at Kopan Monastery in Nepal, by reminding us that we have received this perfect human rebirth with the freedom to practice Dharma qualified by the eight freedoms and ten richnesses. This reb...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching, recorded on August 17, 2021, at Kopan Monastery in Nepal, by reminding us that while we are so fortunate to have received this rare and perfect human rebirth, which is qualified by the eight freedoms and ten richnesses, death can happen at any time, even before this teaching ends. Therefore, the real purpose of life is not just to achieve liberation from sa...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching, recorded on August 14, 2021, at Kopan Monastery in Nepal, by reminding us of how fortunate we are to wake up in the morning with a perfect human rebirth that is qualified by the eight freedoms and ten richnesses. The life we have is like a candle flame in the wind or a bubble in the water, and can be stopped at any time by death. Rinpoche references verse 5...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching, recorded on August 11, 2021, at Kopan Monastery in Nepal, by reminding us that we are so fortunate to have received a precious and perfect human rebirth. While it is precious, it is also fragile and can be ended at any time with death. In this precious life we have received teachings on how we should not harm any sentient being, and not just the ones we lov...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his teachings for ordained Sangha, which are open to all who wish to benefit from his advice. He explains in this video, recorded on August 10, 2021, at Kopan Monastery in Nepal, that trying on being Sangha, like trying different foods hoping they bring you happiness, is not being real Sangha. You can enjoy wearing the robes and trying them on, but if it is just like a...

This podcast is from a teaching that Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave about Buddhist refuge for the graduation ceremony of the first cohort of Human Spirit, an Israel-based Buddhist-psychoanalytic training program over Zoom. Here’s a summary of Rinpoche’s teaching, which was offered on June 8, 2022, from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. All happiness and suffering come from the mind, not from the outside, Rinpoch...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave this teaching to students attending the three-month Vajrasattva retreat at Kopan Monastery in Nepal on April 28, 2022.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave this teaching to students attending the three-month Vajrasattva retreat at Kopan Monastery in Nepal on April 27, 2022. Here’s a summary of Rinpoche’s teaching. If you want to know the truth of the world, the truth of yourself, and if you want to be free from the oceans of samsaric suffering, then you have to know the root cause of suffering, Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains. You...

“Your coming here to do Vajrasattva, wow, that’s really what you need,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche told the students attending the three-month Vajrasattva retreat at Kopan Monastery in Nepal on April 26, 2022. In this teaching, Rinpoche discusses how our ignorance leads to attachment and anger, which make us miserable. By attending courses, studying, and meditating, we can come to understand how our our m...

Our minds are wrapped up in hallucination, Lama Zopa Rinpoche says in this highly charged teaching recorded on March 30, 2022. Speaking to students attending the three-month Vajrasattva retreat at Kopan Monastery in Nepal, Rinpoche says we must use the wisdom of Buddha’s teachings to see the truth, to recognize all the hallucinations we are wrapped up in. The world has so much suffering due to thi...

On April 6, 2022 Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered this teaching to students prior to giving a Milarepa Initiation in Shivapuri Village, Nepal.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this video, recorded on August 6, 2021, at Kopan Monastery, reminding listeners that while this teaching is being given specifically for ordained Sangha, anyone is welcome to take the advice offered. If you haven’t spent your life with a good heart and a positive mind, Rinpoche warns, and instead spend your life trying this and that until life finishes, then you will go t...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching, recorded on July 31, 2021, at Kopan Monastery in Nepal, by referencing this quote by Thogme Sango in Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva: All sufferings come from desiring happiness for oneself. Full enlightenment comes from the thought of benefitting others. Therefore, exchanging one’s own happiness for the suffering of others Is the practice of bodhis...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching, recorded on July 30, 2021, at Kopan Monastery in Nepal, explaining that while he’s offering this teaching specifically to the Sangha at this time—to encourage them to keep their vows as those intent on the virtue that is nirvana—anyone is welcome to listen and benefit from the advice. The total cessation of obscurations, is nirvana, ultimate happiness. It i...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching, recorded on July 25, 2021, at Kopan Monastery in Nepal, by reminding us that the perfect human rebirth doesn’t last long. This body is like a machine—breathing in and out—and can stop at any time. Why does the body keep working? Karma. How long the breath lasts is also due to karma. It can stop at any time, we have to remember this. Some students have even...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching, recorded on July 22, 2021, at Kopan Monastery in Nepal, by reminding us of the motivation he established last session, particularly for the Sangha. He emphasized requesting the guru for blessings to be able to generate a strong wish to be liberated from samsara, quoting verse 87 of Lama Chopa. Rinpoche adds that for this teaching’s motivation, we can look t...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching, recorded on July 20, 2021 at Kopan Monastery in Nepal, discussing two important and powerful holy objects. First, Rinpoche discussed the three-story Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche) statue being built in Maratika, Nepal, to pacify war, famine, and disease—and, of course, for all the six-realm sentient beings, who have been suffering from beginningless rebirths...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains that the purpose of visualizing the mandala is to attain those paths within one’s own heart. To collect the most extensive merit for this practice, Lama Tsongkhapa advised to do the visualizations clearly and visualize as many as possible. Rinpoche describes how to start the day with a bodhicitta motivation and a meditation on impermanence-death. We should think how won...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche describes the motivation, visualizations, and dedications for making our offerings expansive. With a bodhicitta motivation, we should visualize that we are offering all the offerings in all FPMT centers on behalf of all sentient beings to the ten-direction Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, thinking that their essence is the root virtuous friend. Rinpoche goes into detail about incense...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche talks about the Arya Sanghata Sutra. He says it is an incredible source of collecting merit. The minute you hear this Arya Sanghata Sutra, it completely purifies all the five uninterrupted negative karmas. It’s like an atomic bomb to purify negative karma. Rinpoche says that to build the Maitreya Buddha statue as quickly as possible, many sangha and students have been reciting t...

In recapping the benefits of stupas and the mantras to fill them, Rinpoche advises not to put all kinds of things inside the stupa, such as incomplete Dharma texts or wrong-view texts. He says that we need to be careful because what you put inside a stupa affects the monastery, nunnery, center, or family. It’s also necessary to check what kind of person made the offering. If it comes from someone...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains why Buddha manifested relics. He says that it was explained in the Golden Light Sutra that the Buddha showed a short lifespan to benefit sentient beings. The activity of passing away and leaving relics shows the skillful means of the Buddha. By prostrating, making offerings, and serving the relic, you are able to abandon the eight non-freedoms. You will also meet a virt...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche reads the General Confession in the presence of two relics. He clarifies some of the points and explains how to mediate on how everything is merely labeled. Rinpoche then recites the increasing effect mantra, the mala blessing mantra, and the mantra for blessing the feet. He describes the benefits of these mantras. Next, he gives the oral transmission and a detailed commentary o...