The meaning of blessings is transforming one’s own mind into the whole path to enlightenment of method and wisdom with the goal of transforming these into the Dharmakaya and the Rupakaya. So the meaning of blessing contains all this.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains what it means to receive the blessings of the guru, and then recites Lama Tsongkhapa’s lamrim prayer, the Foundation of All Good Qualities, in Tibetan. These teachings were given by Rinpoche at the Thirty-third Kopan Meditation Course, held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in 2000. Read along with the transcript on our website.

 

All existence are condensed into two truths. MANI signifies the truth for all-obscuring mind, the dependent arising, and PADME is the truth for the absolute wisdom, the emptiness. Then HUM is the unification of dependent arising and emptiness.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
In this month’s podcast, Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains the meaning of the mantra, OM MANI PADME HUM, and then offers an oral transmission of the Long Chenrezig Mantra. These teachings were given in Singapore, in January 1993. You can read along with the transcript on our website.

From our side, from us sentient beings, from our side, if we practice correctly, definitely, without doubt, definitely we’ll achieve the ultimate peace. 
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains how to practice in order to achieve the ultimate peace for ourselves and all sentient beings. These teachings were given by Rinpoche in Singapore in January, 1993. You can read along with the transcript on our website.

Once your inner enemy of delusion is destroyed, it is the same as if all outside enemies have been destroyed in one instant.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
This month on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive podcast, Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains how to protect ourselves from anger and expands upon the mind of loving kindness. These teachings were given by Rinpoche at the Thirty-third Kopan Meditation Course, held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in 2000. You can follow along with the transcript on our website.

The way the ‘I’ and phenomena appear to us, to our hallucinated mind, is they are not merely labeled by mind. As long as these things appear to you that way – not merely labeled by mind – they don’t exist. They’re totally empty there.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
This month on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive podcast, Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains how things appear to exist from their own side. These teachings were given at the Thirty-third Kopan Meditation Course, held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in 2000. You can listen also along to the transcript on our website.

When you follow the ego, you become a disciple of the ego. You follow the ego day and night and listen what ego says all the time. Even if you have received all the sutra and tantra teachings and have heard them many times, when you follow the ego nothing happens in your mind.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Zopa Rinpoche discusses the many shortcomings of following the self-cherishing mind, and encourages us to abandon it without delay. These teachings were given at at the Thirty-third Kopan Meditation Course, held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in 2000. Read along with the transcript on our website.

Through this way of meditating, you begin to realize it’s not the object that is disturbing. It’s your mind; it’s your concept. Your mind is making you unhappy; your mind is disturbing you.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains how everything we experience comes from the mind. These teachings were given during the Thirty-third Kopan meditation course held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, 2000. Read along with the transcript on the LYWA website.

Even if you find it very hard to understand the teachings on emptiness, you will leave positive imprints on the mind and remove the imprints of delusion. The benefits you receive just by listening is like the limitless sky.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Zopa Rinpoche elaborates on the emptiness of the I, then  gives oral transmission of the Heart Sutra and partial transmission of the Diamond Cutter Sutra. These teachings were given by Rinpoche on Lhabab Duchen during the Thirty-third Kopan Meditation Course, held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in 2000. You can follow along with the transcript on our website.

Because you look at everything as empty, the strong selfish mind, the ego, doesn’t arise. When you think like this, it makes your life stable, filled with peace, happiness, contentment; it brings so much benefit.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains how to practice mindfulness as we go through our day, and offers advice on daily practice. These teachings were given by Rinpoche at the Thirty-third Kopan Meditation Course, held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in 2000. Listen along with the transcript on our website.

Because we rely on the methods revealed by Buddha – the path to liberation and enlightenment – we naturally take refuge in the Buddha.
– Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains why we take refuge in the Buddha. Rinpoche then chants a prayer asking for blessings of the lineage lamas, followed by recitation of The Foundation of All Good Qualities, a lamrim prayer by Lama Tsongkhapa. These teachings were given by Rinpoche at the Thirty-third Kopan Meditation Course, held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in 2000. You can follow along with the transcript on our website.

The ego, this self-cherishing thought, the ego is much more harmful than all the atomic bombs that are in the world because atomic bomb even if it explodes, if you have bodhichitta it doesn’t cause you to be reborn in the hell realm, lower realm.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains how Shakyamuni Buddha was just like us until he changed his attitude from ego to bodhichitta and explains how the ego causes more harm than even the most powerful weapon and must be abandoned. Rinpoche gave this teaching during the 33rd Kopan Meditation course in 2000. You can follow along with the transcript on our website. 

By training the mind in patience, it leaves a positive imprint on your mind. Then later you find it easier for the mind to be patient and more and more difficult for the mind to get angry. It’s the same with self-cherishing or bodhicitta. Whichever way one trains the mind, one can become more easily habituated towards that mind even in this life.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains the difference between the mind and the body, engages in debate with the students on this difference, and ends by offering the proof of reincarnation by habituation. These teachings were given by Rinpoche during the 29th Kopan Meditation Course, held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in 1996. You can also read along with the transcript on the LYWA website.

Happiness comes from a positive attitude and action motivated by that.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
This month on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive podcast, Lama Zopa Rinpoche answers a student’s question about the relationship between the mind and the heart when practicing bodhichitta, how to be authentic in the practice of compassion, and where to locate happiness. This teaching was given by Rinpoche in 1990 in Boston, Massachusetts and was hosted by Kurukulla Center. You can also watch Rinpoche give these teachings on the LYWA YouTube channel.

The meditation practice is like the seed. The actual body of meditation, the practice, that is like the seed and purifying the hindrances and the accumulation of merit are like the soil and water.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains why we must prepare the ground of our mind with merit accumulation and karmic purification so that the seeds of our practice of listening, contemplation, and meditation can grow into realizations on the path to attain enlightenment for the sake of all mother sentient beings. These teachings were given by Rinpoche at Manjushri Institute, Cumbria, England, August 16-24, 1979.

Even giving just one single tiny grain of rice to one single sentient being will accumulate infinite merit when you are motivated to give by the precious wish to attain enlightenment to benefit numberless sentient beings.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Zopa Rinpoche discusses the power and importance of the precious bodhicitta during teachings on Geshe Langri Tangpa’s Eight Verses of Thought Transformation, given at Manjushri Institute, Cumbria, England, August 16-24, 1979. Read along with the transcript on the LYWA website.

 
 
 

Every single phenomena is like that. There’s merely gathered, the base to be labeled, then due to that, then mere imputation, then only after that, then you have that appearance.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
In these teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche given during a lamrim retreat held at Vajrapani Institute in Boulder Creek, California, from August 20-23, 2006, Rinpoche explains how everything we experience is merely imputed by our minds by using the example of a child who is too young to speak. If a child doesn’t know the name of something, does it exist? You can follow along with the transcript here.

 
Compassion should be at the heart of our life, at the center of all our relationships and in all our practices.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Zopa Rinpoche gives the transmission of the mantra and dharani of Chenrezig, the Buddha of Compassion and explains why reciting these mantra helps us to develop compassion from the center of our heart for all beings and especially for those we see as the enemy. Rinpoche illuminates how the path to enlightenment depends first on developing immeasurable compassion for each and every being. These teachings were given by Rinpoche during a Maitreya puja at Shakyamuni Center in Taichung, Taiwan, in March 2007. You can follow along with the transcript on our website.

If you don’t practice Dharma, don’t learn Dharma, don’t meditate, if you don’t pray to have realization of the path to enlightenment, at least even the path to liberation, if you don’t do that then so many sentient beings have to suffer for you to live, for your happiness, it is so unimaginable, unbearable, so unbearable.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Everything we do to keep this human body alive inevitably harms other sentient beings and thus accumulates negative karma. Rinpoche describes this harm and the incredible power of the object to quickly accumulate huge amounts of positive merit. Contemplate how this power of the object can help us accumulate more than enough positive merit to offset the constantly accumulating negative karma of living. May we accumulate more than enough positive merit to quickly and more quickly constantly progress on the path to enlightenment for the sake of all mother sentient beings. Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave this Dharma talk prior to a refuge ceremony at Amitabha Buddhist Centre, Singapore, on January 18, 2009. You can read along with the transcript on our website.

 

Manjushri bodhisattva is the highest manifestation of being, the embodiment of all knowledge.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
The Ārya-mañjuśrī-nāma-saṅgīti (Chanting the Names of Noble Manjushri) consists of 160 verses and mantra sentences, condensing an enormous tantric lore. Listen to Lama Zopa Rinpoche reciting the Ārya-mañjuśrī-nāma-saṅgīti in Tibetan. Rinpoche recorded this recitation in 2006, and asked for the recording to be made available for anyone to listen at any time during their day. Rinpoche also suggested to play it loudly so that animals and others nearby can hear it, and thereby benefit from it as well.
Recently His Holiness the Dalai Lama has offered us all the precious advice to recite Chanting the Names of Noble Manjushri continuously for a few months, for the swift return of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s reincarnation. Thus all students of Lama Zopa Rinpoche are requested to please recite Chanting the Names of Noble Manjushri as much as you can, continuously, starting now. You can download the English translation of Chanting the Names of Noble Manjushri and read His Holiness’s letter of advice on the FPMT website.

On August 11th, 2019, Tenzin Ösel Hita participated in the ongoing series “Taste of Buddhism” offered by FPMT center Tse Chen Ling in San Francisco. Tse Chen Ling describes Ösel as “a radical free-thinker, former monk, filmmaker, and musician who is highly gifted at sharing the essence of the Dharma and how it can be infused in modern daily life.” In this frank and open talk, Ösel shares his thoughts on the role of Dharma in the modern age and his experience navigating life as the recognized tulku of Lama Yeshe. This podcast is an edited excerpt; you can watch the entire unedited talk here: https://www.facebook.com/TseChenLingCenter/videos/2458303330927855/?t=801