Give Your Ego the Wisdom Eye

Dharma in Daily Life, Introductory, Lama Yeshe, Nature of the Mind

Watching your internal world is more interesting than watching a movie. Every minute, there’s something new as your mind is constantly moving. It’s a remarkable experience!

-Lama Yeshe

Lama Yeshe explains why and how to release our ego. These teachings were given during a five-day retreat Lama led near Melbourne, Australia, in March 1975, dedicated to the awakening of inner freedom and published by LYWA in Ego, Attachment and Liberation. You can also read along with the transcript on our website.

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Like Winning the Lottery

Compassion and Bodhicitta, Dharma in Daily Life, Introductory, Karma, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Lamrim Teachings, Perfect Human Rebirth

How do you liberate yourself and others from constant suffering? You use this precious human body to cherish others more than yourself. That’s the method, that’s the practice, that’s the solution.

-Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Lama Zopa Rinpoche reminds us that being born into this precious human body affords us incredible opportunities to practice the Dharma and how we should feel incredible, unbelievable joy and bliss as if we had won the lottery. These teachings were given at Root Institute, Bodhgaya, in December 2003. Read along with the transcript on our website.

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The Mind of Retreat

Compassion and Bodhicitta, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Practice Commentary

Your mind should be doing retreat in emptiness, retreating away from ignorance, the hallucinated mind, the worldly dharmas, the king of the delusions.

-Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Lama Zopa Rinpoche offers vast and profound retreat advice to participants present during the Thousand-Arm Chenrezig Retreat in Taiwan in 2001. You can read along with the transcript on the LYWA website.

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Help Yourself and Liberate the World

Compassion and Bodhicitta, Dharma in Daily Life, Introductory, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Lamrim Teachings, Perfect Human Rebirth

It’s unbelievable what you can accomplish with this incredible human body. There is no greater joy than this.

-Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Lama Zopa Rinpoche encourages us to take advantage of the power of our human rebirth. Rinpoche gave these teachings during a commentary on Eight Verses of Thought Transformation, an essential mind training text composed by Kadampa Geshe Langri Tangpa, given at Tse Chen Ling Center, in San Francisco, California, USA, in November 2003. You can read along with the transcript on our website.

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The Importance of Compassion

Compassion and Bodhicitta, Introductory, Lama Zopa Rinpoche

There are many different kinds of Dharma practice— hundreds of different mantras to recite, all kinds of meditation—but the most important of them all is the practice of compassion.

-Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Lama Zopa Rinpoche discusses how no matter how you lead your daily life—in retreat, studying Dharma, chanting sadhanas, reciting mantras or putting in long hours at the office—if you never let compassion leave your mind, if you constantly keep in mind the thought of benefiting others, everything you do becomes work for the welfare of others. These teachings were given during a four-day course at Tilopa Center, Decatur, Illinois, in August, 1997 and published in the LYWA free book, Virtue and Reality, edited by Nicholas Ribush.

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Why Are There Different Instructions?

Compassion and Bodhicitta, Karma, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Lamrim (Path to Enlightenment)

When you read different teachings, you might get confused because they look contradictory. One teaching says you must never do something, then another teaching says you must do that. The difference is in the level of development of the mind.

-Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains how karma becomes negative or positive based not on the action but on the mind. A bodhisattva whose mind cherishes others can take actions that appear negative because they are motivated by the mind of enlightenment. But when we are motivated by self-cherishing, we must abandon such negative actions. Rinpoche gave these teachings during a lamrim course at Maitreya Instituut, Emst, in August 1990. You can read along with the transcript on our website.

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Calling the Guru From Afar

Guru Devotion, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Lamrim Teachings, Oral Transmission

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.

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Practicing Compassion

Compassion and Bodhicitta, Lama Zopa Rinpoche

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.

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The Enemy is the Kindest Person

Dharma in Daily Life, Introductory, Karma, Lama Zopa Rinpoche

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.

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Karma in Everyday Life

Dharma in Daily Life, Karma, Lama Zopa Rinpoche

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.

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