In this podcast we focus on teachings of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, on topics of the Graduated Path to Enlightenment, the lamrim. The lamrim is a textual tradition that organizes Shakyamuni Buddha’s teachings into a complete step-by-step path to enlightenment. Each episode is an extract of a longer teaching, capturing the essence of what Rinpoche taught.
Manjushri’s Advice to Lama Tsongkhapa - The Quickest Way to Actualize Realisations
Rinpoche explains that Lama Tsongkhapa asked Manjushri “what is the quickest way to actualize realizations on the path to enlightenment?” Manjushri replied that there are four things. First, purify the obscurations. Obscurations can be purified because they are not in the nature of the mind. The mind’s true nature is buddha nature; it is completely empty of existing in the way it appears to us. The more we purify the obscurations, the more realizations come–this is because of the power of the mind. In the West it might seem like if you have a mind then it has to have attachment, it has to have anger and ignorance, it has to have the self-cherishing thought, but the Buddha taught that the mind’s true nature is totally free from attachment, anger and ignorance. The best purification is pleasing the guru. Everything depends completely on correctly devoting to the virtuous friend.
Second, collect the cause, which is virtue. There are many practices to help do this, such as mandala offerings, but the main practice is following the guru’s advice and wishes. Third, one-pointedly make requests to the guru to receive blessings of the path in your heart and to understand Dharma. “One-pointedly” means looking at the guru as a buddha, using quotations and reasoning. Through your requests, you will receive blessings like rainfall, nourishing the seed of realizations in your heart.
Fourth, meditation. But meditation alone is not enough to achieve enlightenment. If you think like this, this is not understanding how to practice lamrim, how to achieve liberation from samsara how to go to enlightenment. Manjushri said that if you correctly practice with all the support–purifying, collecting merits and one-pointedly requesting the guru–then enlightenment happens.
17 Apr 2023
Nothing Creates More Merit Than Working for Sentient Beings and Serving the Guru
Working for a company focused solely on money, even making a billion dollars a day, is nothing compared to the merit we create by helping people practice Dharma and by fulfilling the wishes of our guru, Lama Zopa Rinpoche says. Rinpoche recalls the story of Lama Atisha checking on the realizations of three disciples. He found that the ones who served as his cook and translator had more realizations than the one who focused on study and meditation. Working hard for sentient beings or offering service to the guru is the same as completing many hundred thousand prostrations, mandala offerings, or other preliminaries. Serving and pleasing the guru creates far more merit than making countless offerings and saving the lives of millions of creatures. All of our wishes succeed if we correctly accomplish our guru’s instructions.
3 Apr 2023
Motivate with Bodhicitta and Dedicate with Emptiness so Your Life Is Not Wasted
When one is upset or afraid—and also happy—remember bodhichitta so life is not wasted and everything we experience is dedicated to others, Rinpoche advises. When we recite mantras with a bodhichitta motivation, it becomes the cause to achieve enlightenment. Afterward, dedicate the merits for oneself to achieve enlightenment for all sentient beings, so that the merits become unceasing, like a drop of water added to the ocean. Also, we can seal the dedication with emptiness so the merits won’t be subject to being destroyed by anger or heresy. Since beginningless rebirths we have been believing the hallucination that everything we experience, including the I, is real; this ignorance the root of our suffering. Dedicating with emptiness leaves positive imprints on our mind, even if we don’t fully understand the words we are saying at this time. The teaching for this episode was recorded on September 09, 2017, at Light of the Path Retreat, United States.
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