Advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Spiritual Director of FPMT
Lama Zopa Rinpoche's
Online Advice Book
For more advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche on a wide range of topics in the form of short talks and letters go to - Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive
Current Advice | Advice by Topic
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This page is updated regularly.
Current Advice
Rinpoche's Letter from the FPMT Annual Review 2011
Click to read the full Annual Review 2011 (which includes some great photos of Rinpoche)
The Benefit of Working for the Center - Wow!
Sometimes people who are working at centers only think of the problems - problems, problems, problems. Maybe it makes them feel sick. Their heart becomes very dry, very uninterested. [However] if you know how to think, it’s really unbelievable. The highest merit is collected and there is the greatest purification by working for the center. Otherwise, you might think, “Oh, maybe I’ll go and work in the hospital, there’s much more merit from doing that.” You see, when you don’t think of Dharma, when you completely forget that the Dharma is the only way to really benefit sentient beings, to liberate them from suffering, then you start thinking things like, “Oh, maybe I’ll go and help in a children’s camp, that’s more beneficial.” People think like that.
This is a recent letter that I wrote that I thought would be helpful for others:
Thank you very, very much for working for the center, arranging facilities and so forth. The Dharma center is to benefit sentient beings, to free them from the oceans of samsaric suffering, all the sufferings, and bring them to enlightenment. So you working for the center means that.
You are working for every single animal, even the ants you see on the road and the birds that fly in the sky. You are working for every one of them, from the tiniest insect that you can see only through a machine to the largest ones in the oceans like the whales. There are so many animals living in the depths of the oceans, there are big ones that eat so many small ones and many small ones that eat the big ones. You are working for every single cow and sheep, for all the animals, for them to achieve liberation from samsara and full enlightenment, as well as for every single hell being, every single hungry ghost, every single human being - not only in that state, not only in that country, but every single human being in the universe, in all the universes - and every single sura and asura being. You are working for everybody, EVERYBODY, to bring them to full enlightenment.
People come to the center to meditate on bodhicitta and to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings. You can’t imagine the benefit to everybody who comes to the center to do this, working to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings. So the work can be hard but can you see the benefit? Can you imagine the benefit? Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow! The benefit to every living being! Can you imagine the benefit of working for the center?
For example, you work for the people coming to the center with the motivation of bodhicitta and they practice Dharma to benefit sentient beings. Can you imagine? Even by that? Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.
With much love and prayer from crazy Lama Zopa. Getting crazier every second, ha ha!
Advice by Topic
Animals | Buddha Multiplying Days | Centers and FPMT Organization
Death | Holy Objects | Natural Disasters
Peace in the World | Practice and Practical Advice | Protection from Harm | Retreat
Sickness | Shugden (Dholgyal) Advice | Sutras - various
Conseils en français (Advice in French)
Animals
- Bird Flu (Nov 2005)
- How to Benefit Animals
- Request to stop animal sacrifice in Nepal (Nov 2009)
- Liberating Animals Practice
- Sign 'Please Don't Hunt'
- Turkeys - Help Them on Thanksgiving
For more advice from Rinpoche on this subject in the form of short talks and letters, please go to Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive
Buddha Multiplying Days
Centers and FPMT Organization
- Attitude For Offering Service
- Benefit of Centers
- Benefits of Working for Dharma Centers
- Collect Merit So Easily at the Center
- Dharma Centers - Why Do They Exist
- Dragons at the Doors of Centers
- FPMT Education and Organization
- Gong to Call All Buddhas & Bodhisattvas
Drawing of Gong » - How Fortunate and Happy We Are!
- How to Practice: Advice to a Study Group
This is a condensed advice for each of us on how to practice for our entire lives.
- How to Rejoice about Hardships Borne Working for the Center and Thanks
- Incredible Benefit Offered by FPMT Centers, Projects and Services
- Lama Zopa's Letter to New Center Director and Study Group Coordinator (Nov 5, 2009)
- Need for Organization
- Remembering the Kindness Prayer (Rinpoche would like this prayer used throughout the organization. The prayer should be done following the Prayer that Spontaneously Fulfills All Wishes (Tong nyi nying je ....) at the end of dedication prayers)
Prayers for His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Tibet (for those without Prayer Books) - The Purpose of the Center Building
- The Real Professional
- Sangha are the Heroes
- Service as a Path to Enlightenment
- Successful Service due to Guru Devotion
- Sur Offering
- Why We Need Dharma and Dharma Centers
For more advice from Rinpoche on Centers and the FPMT Organization in the form of short talks and letters, please go to Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive
Death
- Essential Practices for the Time of Death
- How to Make Your Possessions Meaningful
A4 Version
Letter Version - The Liberation Box, Tools for a Fortunate Rebirth
- Methods to Counteract Spirit Harm
- Request Prayers for the Dead
For more advice from Rinpoche on this subject in the form of short talks and letters, please go to Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive - transitions and Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive - health
Holy Objects
- Benefits of Having Many Holy Objects
- Benefits of the Prayer Wheel
- Prayer Wheel card for display
- Essential Mantras for Holy Objects
- Holy Relics
- Mantras for Microfilm
- Why Holy Objects are Precious and Wish-fulfilling
Natural Disasters
- To Control Earthquakes and the Four Elements
- For All Affected by Earthquake and Tsunami
- Practices for Protection from Radiation
- Disasters of the Elements
- How to Stop Rain
- Practices for Burma and China (2008)
For more advice from Rinpoche on this subject in the form of short talks and letters, please go to Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive
Peace in the World
- Support His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Tibet - advice given March 27th 2008
- Recite the Golden Light Sutra for peace in the world - advice given May 7th 2007
- Advice specifically for Iraq and “for people who desire peace for themselves and for others”, given June 28 2004
- For World Peace - advice given after Sept 11th 2001
- Avoid Negative Rejoicing - advice given after Sept 11th 2001
Practice and Practical Advice
- Attitude to Have After Being Robbed
- Avoid the Ten Non-Virtues
- Benefits of Chenrezig's Mantra and How to Practice with a Prayer Wheel
- Bodhisattva Attitude: How to Dedicate Your Life to Others
- Bodhichitta Mindfulness
- Buddhist Marriage Ceremonies
- Compassion is of the Utmost Need - Ten frame-ready quotes on compassion
- Daily Taking and Giving
- Don't Waste your Perfect Human Rebirth
- Driving - The Wheel of Sharp Weapons of My Negative Karma When Driving
- Eliminating Obstacles (Guru Rinpoche prayer)
- Financial Anxieties - Put in Perspective
- Heart Advice of Achos Rinpoche, with commentary from Rinpoche
- How to be a Real Professional (Excerpt from How to Be a Real Professional)
- Importance of Meditation
- Morality Is the Support and Foundation for All Good Qualities
- Most Important for Success
- New Students and Prisoners
- Ordinary Life Actions - Make Them Meaningful
- Pacifying the Date of Cutting Hair
- Parenting - Advice for parents
- Prayer Book Updates: Essential Buddhist Prayers Volumes 1 & 2 and Retreat Prayer Book Updates
- Real Chöd Practice
- Reasons to Practice Dharma
- What Students Need to Do; 2010
“Within the FPMT organization we are doing well studying the words. Now students need to experience the lam-rim.”
For more advice from Rinpoche on this subject in the form of short talks and letters, please go to Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive
Protection from Harm
- The Liberation Box, Tools for a Fortunate Rebirth
- Namgyalma Card and Amulet
- Samantabhadra Protection
Carte de protection de Samantabhadra en français - Short Consecration Ritual
- Sutra of Golden Light & Vajra Cutter for wearing
- Tashi Tsegpa: to dispel all inauspiciousness
- Vairocana Protection
Retreat
- Benefits of Retreat on Lam-Rim
- Checklist of Practices Rinpoche Recommends for Retreats
- Good and Bad Days for Fire Puja
- Retreat Places - Purpose Of
Sickness
- Counteract the SARS virus
- Practices to do for Contagious Diseases
- To protect from cancer, swine flu as well as new diseases
- Using Sickness For the Path
Shugden (Dholgyal) Advice
Sutras - various
- Amitayus Long Life Sutra -Various Languages
- Entering the Great City of Vaishali
- Golden Light Sutra -Various Languages
- Heart Sutra
- Sanghata Sutra -Various Languages
- Vajra Cutter Sutra -Various Languages
