Lama Zopa Rinpoche full length teachings

Lama Zopa Rinpoche bestows the oral transmission of The Heart’s Utmost Need (previously known as Heart-Spoon) by Pabongka Rinpoche. He says that he received the transmission of this very effective teaching on the nature of life, impermanence, and death from Ribur Rinpoche. Ribur Rinpoche received it from His Holiness Trijang Rinpoche, who received it directly from Pabongka Rinpoche. Lama Zopa Rinp...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche emphasizes the importance of this precious human body. He says that it’s extremely rare to find. Therefore, while we have the opportunity to practice Dharma, we should secure a good rebirth, especially a perfect human rebirth, to continue to practice Dharma. Rinpoche explains that rebirth in the deva realm makes it much harder to generate renunciation compared to the human realm...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues the oral transmission of How to Meditate on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment (from Pabongkapa Dechen Nyingpo’s Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand). He starts with “Part Six: How to develop the spiritual realizations that relate to the suffering of the lower states.” Rinpoche explains that meditating on the lower realms gives us courage to renounce meaningless a...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche says that human rebirth is more precious than all the wealth in the human and deva realms. It’s the basis for us to achieve liberation and full enlightenment. Therefore, before death, we must free ourselves from samsara. To do this depends on bodhicitta. Rinpoche explains that without bodhicitta, we cannot practice the tantric path. By cherishing one human being, we can achieve...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains how the tea offering to the eight groups of worldly devas can help stop natural disasters, such as extreme weather events. He recalls a time when he was at the Taipei Center in Taiwan during a typhoon. As the wind was pummeling the windows, he asked a geshe to do the tea offering. As soon as the offering was done, the wind stopped. Rinpoche adds that if the person is li...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche goes through the names of the lineage lamas and discusses two important lamrim texts: The Happy Path (by Panchen Palden Yeshe) and The Red Commentary (by Panchen Losang Yeshe). He mentions that The Red Commentary is the basis of Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand by Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo. Rinpoche revises the discussion from the previous evening about not seeing faults in the...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche highlights the importance of reading the life stories of the Buddha and the lamrim lineage lamas. These stories show us how they practiced and how much hardship they endured, which inspires us to courageously bear hardships. When you’re able to bear hardships, then there’s no obstacle to continuously practicing Dharma. Rinpoche says that all the purification practices are encomp...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this session with an analysis of how the mind labels phenomena using the example of the letter ‘M’. He shows how M came from our mind because it’s imputed by the mind. Rinpoche explains that there is no outside creator; the creator is your mind. Rinpoche says that until your mind labels a problem, there is no appearance of a problem. The problem only comes into existence...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues the discussion from the previous session about his pen-pal when he was in Buxa, Rachel Levi (a member of the Buddhist Society in London). Rinpoche recalls his dream about receiving a letter when she passed away. Although they didn’t meet, when Rinpoche was in London, he met her niece. When the niece’s husband passed away, an extensive puja was offered at Manjushri Inst...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche says that the reason to have meetings is to help with wisdom. Many people have different ideas, so that helps generate a broader view. Rinpoche talks about the importance of Sangha as role models. He says learning the words is incredible, but without practice, it’s like a tape-recorder. When someone has meditated on lamrim, they can teach with experience. Rinpoche introduces the...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche discusses the seven attributes of a perfect human body and clarifies the points relating to caste and gender. He also discusses the eight ripening aspects that Lama Tsongkhapa emphasized in the Hymns of the Experience of the Path to Enlightenment. Rinpoche highlights the preciousness of this perfect human body. He says that it is more precious than the whole sky filled with wish...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains how to do the meditation with the requesting prayer. The way to meditate is to realize Guru Vajradhara, the Dharmakaya Buddha, as the root virtuous friend that embodies and pervades all the manifested billions of mandalas or deities. Rinpoche highlights that the purpose of our life is to free all sentient beings from suffering and cause them happiness. He says that work...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche says that if you are only seeking the happiness of this life, then you haven’t reached any of the three capacities of the lamrim. The attitude of just seeking the power, reputation, and wealth of this life is an ordinary capable being, not a special capable being. This is not different from the animals and insects. Rinpoche emphasizes that the meditations for the graduate path o...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche emphasizes the importance of first becoming clear about the extremely subtle dependent arising view that things exist merely in name (the Middle Way view). If this view is clear in your mind, then the rest becomes easy. If not, then you may get confused or fall into nihilism. Rinpoche gives instructions on how to meditate on this view. He explains the meaning of “form is empty”...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gives the oral transmission (lung) of the Guru Puja. He explains that taking the oral transmission is important because it has the continuity of blessings from Panchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen, who completed the path to enlightenment. Rinpoche says that he received the transmission from a few lamas—His Holiness, of course, and also Trijang Rinpoche and Ling Rinpoche. Rinpoche expl...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins with a recap of the previous session’s topic: to always live life with a bodhicitta motivation. He cites the Kadampa geshes, who say that if we don’t do this, life will be a never-ending confession. This is because without bodhicitta, our mind will be self-centered and this causes other negative emotional thoughts (anger, attachment, jealousy, etc.) to arise. Then, we wil...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins with a reminder about the previous session’s discussion of how beneficial it is to recite the Buddha’s past bodhisattva life stories. He also talks about Lupa Rinpoche, a Nepalese lama who inspired many people to do nyung-näs and made a Dharma law that people could not kill animals in his past life. Regarding the Buddha’s past bodhisattva life stories, Lama Zopa Rinpoche...

This session begins with the Guru Puja offering practice, prayers, and mantras. During the recitation of the tong-len prayer, Lama Zopa Rinpoche advises us to pause and go over the outline of the bodhicitta techniques (either the seven-point cause and effect method or equalizing and exchanging the self with others). Rinpoche says that since bodhicitta is the most precious wish-fulfilling thought f...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche defines each of the three capacities of lamrim practitioners: lower, middling, and upper capacity beings. He advises that if we are only seeking happiness for this life, then we haven’t even reached the first capacity. Rinpoche stresses that such a person is not different from animals. Even animals are expert at seeking the happiness of this life by killing or cheating to get fo...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains the Guru Puja prayers and offerings. He begins by reminding us to cultivate the special bodhicitta motivation and visualize offering all the extensive offerings in front of us as well as those in all the FPMT center gompas worldwide. By offering these on behalf of every sentient being to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, it becomes a very powerful puja for all sentient be...

In explaining the general confession, Lama Zopa Rinpoche says that there are two types of regret. One type is useless because it only brings suffering; the other is positive as it leads to happiness. For example, if you feel regret after having done a virtuous action, it decreases the merit. Conversely, if you feel regret about a non-virtuous action, it weakens the negative karma. So, one way to p...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains that any happiness—temporary or up to enlightenment—depends on merit. Therefore, merit is incredibly precious. Rinpoche urges us to rejoice and feel happiness in our heart by recollecting all our past, present, and future merits. Each time we rejoice, the merit doubles. We should also rejoice in others’ merit. If we rejoice in the merits of a being whose mind is lower t...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche discusses the extensive offerings that are being made at FPMT centers around the world and explains how to make charity by offering these on behalf of all sentient beings. In this way, every single offering becomes an offering from every single sentient being and they all gain merit. So, this becomes a great puja for the happiness of all sentient beings. Rinpoche says that each...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains the Lama Chöpa prayers, visualizations, and offerings. He mentions that this sort of explanation is not common within the Tibetan tradition, but for Westerners, he wants to provide some detail. Rinpoche says that the essential point is faith. If the prayers are recited with deep devotion, they become powerful. In this way, any mantra or prayer contains the complete path...

Lama Zopa Rinpoche takes us through a meditation on emptiness. He explains how everything appears inherently existent but is merely labelled by the mind and doesn’t have even an atom of true existence from its own side. Using various examples (the self, the five aggregates, actions, objects, phenomena, forms, sounds, smells, tastes, tangible objects, colors, samsara, nirvana, lower realms, upper r...