Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive

As you listen to the oral transmission think, “May I be able to reveal each word to every sentient being and may they be able to actualize the path immediately in their mind when they hear it.” -Lama Zopa Rinpoche This month on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive podcast, Lama Zopa Rinpoche gives teachings on guru devotion and a brief commentary on Pabongka Rinpoche’s Calling the Guru from Afar during an oral transmission of the text in Singapore in April 1992. You can read along with the transcript on the LYWA website.

Compassion makes everything sweet, rich, meaningful, worthwhile, and the cause of enlightenment. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche This month on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive podcast, Lama Zopa Rinpoche discusses the all-pervasive importance of compassion. These teachings were given by Rinpoche at Deer Park Buddhist Center in Madison, Wisconsin, July, 1999. You can also listen along with the transcript on our website.

How can I practice patience if no one gets angry with me? How will I find the opportunity to develop my mind in patience? The opportunity is completely due to the kindness of this person who is angry at me. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains in detail why it is so important to practice patience with those who wish to harm us and with those who are angry with us. These teachings were given by Rinpoche at the Thirty-third Kopan Meditation Course, held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in 2000. You can listen along with the transcript on our website.

It is extremely important to reflect, to meditate, to think deeply about karma so that it does not become just a word. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa Rinpoche leads a recitation of the Heart Sutra, the Foundation of All Good Qualities by Lama Tsong Khapa, and Shakyamuni Buddha’s mantra, before describing the importance of karma in everyday life. These teachings were given during a lamrim course led by Rinpoche at Maitreya Instituut, the Netherlands, in August 1990. You can also listen along with the transcript on our website.

When the subject of karma is missing, there’s no understanding that harming others means harming oneself.  -Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa Rinpoche considers how Western psychology lacks an understanding of karma and discusses how it is not enough for a patient to attain superficial happiness if the deeper cause of suffering remains untreated. These teachings … Continue reading Ignore Karma at Your Own Peril →

We have this negative karma collected on our mental continuum, and we have to do something to clean it, to purify it. If we do nothing, it piles up like mountains and we will experience life’s problems again and again, again and again, because the negative karma is still there. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa … Continue reading Just Do It →

Ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara, enlightenment, everything, all this happiness – the creator is your mind, not somebody outside. This gives you incredible freedom. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa Rinpoche encourages us to make the best use of our lives by realizing how the mind is the creator of all our happiness and suffering. Through … Continue reading The Best Use of Your Life →

The minute you accept your own karma, you cut the problem. You have to accept your own karma. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche As Lama Yeshe once said, “Once a situation has manifested, the best thing to do is to accept the fact and deal with it.” Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains how we can use such challenging … Continue reading How to Deal with Difficult Situations →

Somebody who helps you to destroy your ego is so precious and shows you unbelievable kindness. This kindness you should feel deeply from bottom of your heart. -Lama Zopa Rinpoche Lama Zopa Rinpoche illustrates the way that all suffering and happiness is created by the mind. Rinpoche then shares a story of how as a … Continue reading Your Problem Is Coming From Inside Your Mind →

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 … Continue reading The Meaning of Blessing →

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. Rinpoche then chants a prayer asking for blessings of the lineage lamas, followed by recitation of The … 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 →