Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive

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 … Continue reading The Meaning of OM MANI PADME HUM →

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 … Continue reading To Achieve the Ultimate Peace →

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 … Continue reading Covering The Whole Earth →

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 … Continue reading How Things Appear to Exist from their Own Side →

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 … Continue reading The Shortcomings of Self-Cherishing →

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 … Continue reading Everything Comes From The Mind →

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 … Continue reading Listening Like the Limitless Sky →

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 … Continue reading Using Everything to Practice Mindfulness →

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 and how to request the blessings of the lineage. Rinpoche gave this teaching during the 33rd … Continue reading Relying on the Buddha →

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 … Continue reading Change Your Attitude, Change Your Action →

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 … Continue reading Proof of Reincarnation by Habituation →

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 … Continue reading Where to Find Happiness →

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 … Continue reading Our Practice Is Like A Seed →

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 … Continue reading The Loving Compassionate Precious Thought for Enlightenment →

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 … Continue reading How We Name the World →

  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 … Continue reading The Living Heart of Compassion →

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 … Continue reading The Power of the Object of Merit →

Don't cheat yourself. Don't deceive yourself. Don't be distracted by sense pleasures. Exist where you are right now. Make your life worthwhile. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche This month's LYWA podcast is a short spontaneous Dharma talk by Lama Zopa Rinpoche on the importance of making this life worthwhile, given on April 20, 2000 while Rinpoche was … Continue reading Make Your Life Worthwhile →

You have to develop perfect power, so that you can reveal to all sentient beings the appropriate methods according to their level of mind. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains why practicing the good heart is so extremely important, the basis of all action. Recognizing the workaday world reality in which most of his … Continue reading Practicing the Good Heart →

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 … Continue reading Chanting the Names of Noble Manjushri →

You have no enemy when you don't have anger. Only when you have anger you have enemy in your life. So it's all to do with your concept. It's all in your mind. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche These teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche on the power of our perfect human rebirth are from a commentary Rinpoche … Continue reading It's all in your mind →

The incredible, unbelievable, most unbelievable, no words, how most important to generate bodhicitta, can you imagine? -Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa Rinpoche celebrates the power of bodhicitta during teachings given by Rinpoche at the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive home office in October 2012. Rinpoche was in town to attend the visit of His Holiness the … Continue reading Imagine the Power of Bodhicitta →

If we don't create good karma again, we cannot predict what will happen to us after this minute, after this hour, tonight, tomorrow, next year. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche From extensive teachings on karma excerpted from a lamrim course led by Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Maitreya Instituut, Emst, in August 1990. Read along with the … Continue reading Contemplate Karmic Appearance →

One must understand that by hurting others, you are also creating the cause to be hurt by others. To really solve the problem one has to do something with the cause, which is within your mind. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains how the self-cherishing thought seeking happiness negatively affects our karma. But the … Continue reading Renouncing the Self-cherishing Thought →

So, what is the way that Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, what is his way of freeing the sentient being from suffering? By revealing the absolute truth, by revealing the nature of the existence. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains how Guru Buddha Shakyamuni frees us from suffering by revealing the true nature of reality. But … Continue reading How Guru Shakyamuni Frees Sentient Beings →

It is amazing how even within a minute, even in each second, eating, walking, sitting, sleeping, wow, what you can do with this precious human body by understanding and practicing the Dharma. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa Rinpoche celebrates our perfect human rebirth and encourages us to bring every single moment in our life into … Continue reading This Precious Human Rebirth →

We are released from confusion while we are aware of the reality of things. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa Rinpoche encourages us to live our life with a mind that is aware of the reality of things so that we avoid the confusion that leads to negative karma. Rinpoche also recites in English the Heart … Continue reading Karma in Everyday Life →

All our suffering is caused by our belief that even though the I is merely labeled on the aggregates, it exists from its own side. This sickness is the root of all our suffering and our cure is our wisdom. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa Rinpoche gives a short vivid explanation about how we circle … Continue reading We Are the Cure of Our Own Samsara →

The essence of the Dharma is to subdue one's mind by taming the disturbing, obscuring, emotional thoughts that bring so much suffering to yourself and to others, from life to life. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche In this teaching from the 33rd Kopan Course in 2000, Lama Zopa Rinpoche discusses the classic Buddhist instruction “Engage in the … Continue reading The Essence of the Dharma →

As Buddha said, you are your own enemy or you are your own liberator. You can create a hell realm or you can create enlightenment. Everything depends on what you do with your mind. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche In these 2000 teachings given during the 33rd Kopan Course, Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains how everything is merely … Continue reading Everything Depends on Your Mind →

As long as you don't drop the burning fire, the fire that burns your hand, the burning cannot be stopped. So like that, as long as one doesn't abandon the self, the I, one cannot abandon suffering, one cannot be free from the suffering. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa Rinpoche guides us through the preciousness … Continue reading Let Go of Suffering for the Sake of Others →

So we're going to destroy, to totally cease, make it completely non-existent, this enemy, this inner enemy, this delusion, this demon, this self-cherishing thought that harms, that has been harming you, torturing you, and all the time, giving you problem all the time, even this life. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa Rinpoche gives this introductory … Continue reading The Urgency of Realizing Lamrim →

The meaning of the word ‘mantra' includes the whole path to enlightenment. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa Rinpoche discusses the use of mantra in highest yoga tantra and explains how our minds should approach the practice of the mantra of Chenrezig. These teachings were given at the Twenty-Eighth Kopan Meditation Course in November 1995. Read along … Continue reading The Meaning of Secret Mantra →

The particular nature of the Dharma is that the more you study the teachings, the more the Dharma becomes deep and clear. And the holy beings, those who work for sentient beings, those who have accomplished the path, these holy beings are who bring the Dharma teachings to us. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa Rinpoche … Continue reading The Qualities of the Dharma and Its Teachers →

The Buddha of Compassion is the embodiment of all the buddhas' great compassion that embraces and never lets go, never gives up on  sentient beings even for one second. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche These teachings on the benefits of reciting the Compassion Buddha's mantra were given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the Twenty-Eighth Kopan Meditation Course … Continue reading Buddha's Compassion Never Gives Up →

How to live the life? First your attitude becomes Dharma. Then with that attitude one lives the life, one does the works, one does the activities. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa Rinpoche observes that we think we can rely on purification practices to deal with our negative karma. Rinpoche warns us against relying too much … Continue reading The Dharma Will Protect Us →

Do not be confused by people who try to disprove the existence of objects of faith like reincarnation or karma by simply labeling them as nonexistent. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa Rinpoche addresses how some people try to disprove the existence of reincarnation and other objects of Buddhist faith by labeling them as false views … Continue reading The Label Is Not Enough →

By developing the mind in patience, whatever happens to you, whatever harm others give you, you will never get angry. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains the power of the mind of patience to bring happiness to all beings we encounter on the path to enlightenment. The most powerful way for us to develop … Continue reading The Enemy is the Kindest Person →

You can't attain the path just by knowing the words. You have to practice. Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa Rinpoche reminds us that we can't expect to just press a button, say a few words and become enlightened. After all we have accumulated countless causes of suffering during countless lives over countless eons. Even Shakyamuni … Continue reading There is No Enlightenment Button →

The basic Buddhist philosophy is that everything comes from karma which comes from your mind, from your intention. Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains how imprints condition our mind to project karmic appearances upon everything we see, hear, smell, touch and taste. By changing our mind, we can change our experience. This short teaching … Continue reading The King of the Superstitious Mind →

Those sentient beings who accumulate merit, especially the sentient beings who know how to accumulate merit, if they have long life you see, then the longer they live then they are able to make their life more meaningful. They are able to create more cause of happiness, so there is sense in living long. -Lama … Continue reading The Long-Life Mantra of White Tara →

If one practices mindfulness in the reality of these things, that which is impermanence, there is liberation from samsara. Lama Zopa Rinpoche The mind is the source of all suffering and the source of all happiness. In this session Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains how subduing the mind by meditating on the reality of impermanence is … Continue reading Subduing the Mind →

Even if we feel we are only capable of doing small things to help others right now, don't feel hopeless or depressed. Instead rejoice because even the smallest attempt to help others should fill our hearts with happiness and joy. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa Rinpoche encourages us to examine whether our attempts to help … Continue reading The Power of Cherishing Others →

Be very clever. “I should be very skillful with my life from now on. I should be very careful with my life. I must make it, without wasting the precious human body which I have received now, without wasting it, I must make it meaningful, highly meaningful as much as I can.” Lama Zopa Rinpoche … Continue reading Making the Precious Human Rebirth Meaningful →

One must have the wisdom and method simultaneously developing. -Lama Yeshe Lama Yeshe gave a series of introductory talks in Los Angeles in 1975. In this excerpt from these talks Lama describes the difference between Hinayana and Mahayana motivation and impresses upon us the importance of developing our wisdom in order to generate bodhicitta without … Continue reading Compassion and Emptiness Together →

By being aware, by knowing about negative karma and all the suffering results, we are persuaded to practice purification. Lama Zopa Rinpoche These teachings were given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the 36th Kopan Meditation Course at Kopan Monastery, Nepal in 2003. In this session, Rinpoche reminds us of the many kinds of negative karma … Continue reading Karma and Purification →

With that continual thought of benefiting other sentient beings, then with every single morsel of food or drop of drink, you collect limitless skies of merit. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche These teachings were given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the 36th Kopan Meditation Course at Kopan Monastery, Nepal in 2003. In this session, Rinpoche teaches how … Continue reading The Yoga of Offering Food →

We hope you enjoy listening to a radio interview with Lama Yeshe on the “What’s Cooking?” radio show with Judy O. This wide-ranging interview took place in Boulder Creek, California on July 22, 1983, just before Lama offered public talks at UC Santa Cruz on the subject of “Anxiety in the Nuclear Age.” Please also … Continue reading Lama Yeshe Rides the Radio Waves →

Once we are free from delusion and karma, there is no cause for fear, so we are free from fear forever. Lama Zopa Rinpoche These teachings were given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the 36th Kopan Meditation Course, held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in 2003. In this session, Rinpoche explains how to use our fear … Continue reading The Useful Fear of Death →

So this time I must receive full enlightenment, that which is free forever from samsara, for the sake of the sentient beings. Lama Zopa Rinpoche From teachings given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche prior to a refuge ceremony at Jamyang Meditation Centre, London, November 6, 1992. In this session, Rinpoche explains the eight benefits of practicing … Continue reading The Eight Benefits of Practicing Refuge →

Delusion and karma come from the mind; they don’t come from outside. The main cause is the mind, so we need to learn more about our own mind, about delusion and karma, and about the path. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche Like a star, a defective view, a butter lamp flame, an illusion. These classic teachings on … Continue reading A Meditation on Emptiness →