Lama Zopa Rinpoche

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human mother. If we were to sacrifice our lives equaling the number of the dust particles of this earth or the sand grains of the Pacific Ocean for just this life’s mother, we could still not finish repaying her kindness. These are the four kindnesses as explained by Kyabje Khunu Lama Rinpoche, from whom His Holiness received extensive commentary on Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. Wasting our life, we waste our parents’ lives This life’s parents are more powerful objects for us than other people. Ordained people are more powerful objects than our parents, though. By serving the Sangha we collect much merit and purify much negative karma, more than with this life’s parents, but still, our parents are very powerful objects for creating merit and negativity as well. Many older Western students have received teachings and initiations from Kyabje Zong Rinpoche. Now his incarnation is an expert because he was an expert in his past life, like the former past great yogis such as Nagarjuna and Asanga. The incarnation is young but he has already finished his geshe studies in Ganden Shartse Monastery. A long time ago, I was fortunate to able to help with some of the expenses and make offering to the monasteries. I told him that I believed he would be able to offer service to the monastery, to take responsibility like an abbot for all the monks, for their education and their practice in the monastery. It is easy to go to the West to teach, but it is very important in the monastery to look after the discipline and to give the monks an education and take care of them. I said that I felt he would be able to do that. He told me jokingly he would take that as a prediction from me. He is very famous in Ganden Shartse Monastery. Kyabje Zong Rinpoche was a very high lama in his past life. He became the abbot of Ganden Shartse, where there were many thousand monks. Once, when his parents came from Kham to Lhasa and he was able to stay with them, he wanted to serve them, to clean the house and get rid of the garbage, to make food and so forth. In his heart he really wanted to do everything a servant would do as a way of repaying their great kindness. He told me he was able to do some of those things—not everything, just cleaning the room and the like— but because of his position as a high lama somehow it was not appropriate. In his heart he really wanted to serve his parents because through having learned the Dharma he understood the kindness of the parents. Understanding the kindness of our parents, we should practice Dharma and use our body, speech and mind to not create negative karma. If we harm other sentient beings and ourselves it completely wastes our parents’ lives. For many, many years they served us, took care of us and gave us an education, and if we then waste all that, we have wasted their lives, made them empty. There has been no positive result from what they have done. We must serve others. Even if we don’t practice Dharma, we must develop a good heart and live a good life. We must become good human beings and serve others with a sincere heart, with compassion. His Holiness emphasizes nowadays that even if we lead a secular life rather than practicing Dharma we must still live an ethical life; we must bring happiness to others and ourselves. 75
We need to explain this to people who don’t know or practice Dharma, to show them how to live their life. If we want to bring peace and happiness to others, to not harm them but to benefit them, we need to lead an ethical life. And if we do that it will have made our parents’ lives meaningful. They suffered so much for us, therefore we must make it all worthwhile, otherwise we have not given them any meaning in return for all the work they did. That would be very sad. It’s very important to think about these things. The guru is the most powerful object As I mentioned, our parents are very powerful objects but the ordained Sangha are even more powerful because of the number of vows they live in. By being of service or making offerings to them we collect much more merit and purify many more defilements than we do with our parents. After this come arya beings, arhats, who have freed themselves from the oceans of samsaric suffering and attained the blissful state of peace for themselves. By making material offerings or offering service to them we collect unbelievable merit and purify vast amounts of negative karma and obscurations, much more than we would in connection with ordinary ordained people. Next, when we compare the numberless arhats with one bodhisattva, if we offer service or make offerings to one bodhisattva, we collect much more powerful merit—unbelievable, unbelievable merit—and purify much more negative karma collected from beginningless rebirths. So many eons of negative karma and obscurations are purified. It is unbelievably more powerful offering service or making offerings to one bodhisattva than to numberless arhats. Now we compare numberless bodhisattvas with just one buddha. By serving or making offerings to one buddha, we purify the most unbelievable negative karma and obscurations collected from beginningless rebirths and collect the most unbelievable merit—more than having served or made offerings to numberless bodhisattvas. That becomes very small compared to serving or making offerings to one buddha even just once. Finally, we compare the numberless buddhas with one guru. By offering to the numberless buddhas, even just some candy or a glass of water, we collect the most extensive merit and achieve the most powerful purification of negative karma and obscurations collected from beginningless rebirths. So many eons of negative karma and obscurations are purified and so much merit is created by serving or making offerings to numberless buddhas, but even though that is unbelievable, it is tiny compared to serving and making offerings to the guru. Being able to follow the guru’s advice or fulfill one of his wishes just once creates the most powerful merit and is the most powerful purification. Doing the same for the numberless buddhas, although great in itself, becomes very small in comparison. Having a relationship with a holy being where we are the disciple and he or she is the guru is a dependent arising. The second after that connection is made, the guru becomes the most powerful person in our life and one from whom we can collect the causes of happiness and purify the causes of suffering, negative karma and defilements. 76
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SUN OF DEVOTION, STREAM OF BLESSING
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The Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive Bring
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6. The Guru Is the Most Powerful Ob
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Editor’s Preface This book is the
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Chapter 1. Taking Care of the Mind
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We still have to experience death b
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In a well-cultivated field, whateve
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What a pleasant life we human being
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enefit the teachings of the Buddha
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Among those fifty-one secondary min
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means the cessation of all the gros
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Padmasambhava’s ways of diagnosin
Page 26 and 27: Practicing Dharma is subduing our m
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Page 30 and 31: In A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s W
Page 32 and 33: said, that allows them to develop i
Page 34 and 35: contained in the Tengyur, a collect
Page 36 and 37: Thus the misconceptions about Buddh
Page 38 and 39: Not understanding this specific emp
Page 40 and 41: Cutter Sutra eventually does. Then
Page 42 and 43: There are sentient beings who are a
Page 44 and 45: vase, the neck is not the vase, the
Page 46 and 47: 4. The freedom of not being born as
Page 48 and 49: sentient beings, not only to the ti
Page 50 and 51: If Milarepa could do that after kil
Page 52 and 53: All of us, believers or nonbeliever
Page 54 and 55: The need for refuge in our life Per
Page 56 and 57: ▶abstaining from telling lies ▶
Page 58 and 59: Otherwise they come into the kitche
Page 60 and 61: Our life is so important, so precio
Page 62 and 63: Even though our mind, or the other
Page 64 and 65: We will realize this as we are abou
Page 66 and 67: The emptiness of the Z I want to en
Page 68 and 69: the greatest problem that affluent
Page 70 and 71: Without a guru, we cannot be free f
Page 72 and 73: This is mentioned in Pabongka Deche
Page 74 and 75: particles of dust of the earth. Eve
Page 78 and 79: Buddhism came from the Buddha, from
Page 80 and 81: obscurations but also the obscurati
Page 82 and 83: Chapter 7. A Talk about Dolgyal Rec
Page 84 and 85: seemed to like us and we were able
Page 86 and 87: very crowded. That’s how we lived
Page 88 and 89: him about the bum-pa, the vase. Thi
Page 90 and 91: A key element of guru devotion prac
Page 92 and 93: who helped with his education, his
Page 94 and 95: In short, practicing Dolgyal is har
Page 96 and 97: Khadro-la and earthquakes Although
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Page 100 and 101: Publicly she is like an ordinary pe
Page 102 and 103: There are other quotations but that
Page 104 and 105: Once in Nepal I dreamed of a small
Page 106 and 107: is the kind root guru. Then it star
Page 108 and 109: It is as the quote says, Before the
Page 110 and 111: The importance of guru devotion Pad
Page 112 and 113: So now, this is a real story. At Bu
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Page 116 and 117: Practicing Dharma is more important
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Page 120 and 121: egin by achieving a long life, wher
Page 122 and 123: Chapter 10. Seeing the Guru as a Bu
Page 124 and 125: The monks did that, but of course,
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uddhas. That is also mentioned in t
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person without head. I don’t know
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Those meditators who have achieved
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When I was in Tibet I visited Tsurp
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Why should they be called kon-chog
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that it is his mistake. It is like
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Chapter 11. More Precious than a Wi
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patience, perseverance, meditation
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dust of this earth can be counted,
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we were once crossing a short bridg
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There are so many animals. There ar
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Whether or not we eat animals is in
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Having been born at a time when the
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We must prepare for the next life T
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There is no sentient being we have
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Probably many people think that ren
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Chapter 12. Cutting the Root of Sam
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Because things appear to us not as
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161
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This is all karma. What the Buddha
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numberless suffering sentient being
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By seeing that person as a wish-gra
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light more and some illusory body.
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to achieve enlightenment. The other
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together is the transcendental wisd
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Then you make a promise to generate
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eings who also need the Medicine Bu
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Focus on the deity’s holy body th
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End Notes 1. Or his. Rather than us
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30. Khedrub Sang ye Yeshe (1525-91)
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64. In other teachings Rinpoche has
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97. These are the three ways to und
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Where and when these teachings were
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Gyatso, Tenzin, the Fourteenth Dala
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———. How to Practice Dharma:
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If you, dear reader, would like to
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Other available teachings by Lama Y
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Our further development similarly d
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The Foundation for the Preservation
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Dedication Through the merit create
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About Gordon McDougall Gordon McDou
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