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 traveling in a car through San Francisco on the way to FPMT’s Tse Chen Ling Center.
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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 stable patience is to practice when confronted by the anger of others. Thus the angry person is the most kind to us, kinder than the friends that love us and the strangers we ignore.
Rinpoche gave these teachings at the Thirty-third Kopan Meditation Course held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in 2000. Read along with the transcript at https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/chapter/day-4-practicing-patience-enemy-kindest-person 
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There’s no other way to do this perfect work for others, so therefore one must actualize the steps of the path to enlightenment; to do that one must purify the obstacles, the negative karmas, obscurations, so therefore then one must do Vajrasattva practice which is the most powerful one by which any negative karma can be purified.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave these profound teachings before a Vajrasattva initiation at Jinsiu Farlin Center in Taiwan in 1994. In these teachings Rinpoche explains the suffering realms of samsara and the benefits of immediately ending all our non-virtuous activities and working quickly to purify all past negative karma so that we may avoid the suffering realms while we practice the path and attain enlightenment for the sake of all. You can also read along with the transcript on our website-https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/benefits-purification-practice-audio-and-unedited-transcript
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Excerpted from a series of teachings given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche in Singapore in 1993. Listen to the rest of the series and follow along with the unedited transcript here.
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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 on purification because it must be done perfectly to be effective. Rinpoche then directs our attention to the suffering realms around us and explains that in order to resist our karmic tendency to accumulate such causes of suffering, our main effort should be focused on living our lives according to the Dharma. These teachings were given by Rinpoche in Sydney, Australia in 1993. Follow along with the transcript on our website at https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/chapter/purification-karma
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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 study of karma is missing in Western psychology. So we must take special care to understand how karma works so we will be inspired to practice the methods that will stop and purify our negative karma. These teaching were given during a lamrim course hosted by Maitreya Instituut, Emst, in August, 1990. Follow along with the transcript on our website.
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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 transcript on our website.
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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 Sutra and Lama Tsongkhapa’s lamrim text The Foundation of All Good Qualities. These teachings were given by Rinpoche during a lamrim course hosted by Maitreya Instituut in August, 1990. You can read along with the transcript on our website.
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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 in samsara, why we circle, and whose fault it is that we circle and suffer. This teaching is from the Fourteenth Kopan Course, 1981. Read along with the transcript on our website here.
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Lama Yeshe encourages students to ask questions fearlessly during a five-day meditation retreat in Australia in 1975. Lama begins by answering practical questions about how to deal with distractions and how to breadth during meditation and then broadens out in response to student wide-ranging questions about attachment, karma and beyond. Read along with the transcript at https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/questions-and-answers-audio-and-unedited-transcript
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