Category Archives: Lamrim (Path to Enlightenment)

Renouncing the Self-cherishing Thought

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

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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Contemplate Karmic Appearance

Introductory, Karma, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Practice Commentary

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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Karma in Everyday Life

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

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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The Label Is Not Enough

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

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 or heresy. Rinpoche demonstrates how labeling something cannot make the labeled phenomena function according to that label. In a similar way, we should not be confused by people who label our objects of faith as nonexistent. Instead we should rely on our faith and apply our wisdom in meditation to experience their functional phenomenal existence. Rinpoche gave these teachings during a lamrim course at Maitreya Instituut, Emst, in August 1990. You can read along with the transcript at https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/chapter/benefits-understanding-karma

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Three Principal Aspects of the Path: Part 2

Lama Yeshe, Lamrim (Path to Enlightenment), Three Principal Aspects of the Path

From teachings given by Lama Yeshe in 1982 in France. These teachings were edited into the book called Essence of Tibetan Buddhism.

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Three Principal Aspects of the Path: Part 1

Lama Yeshe, Lamrim (Path to Enlightenment), Three Principal Aspects of the Path

From teachings given by Lama Yeshe in 1982 in France. These teachings were edited into the book called Essence of Tibetan Buddhism.

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The Qualities of the Dharma and Its Teachers

Guru Devotion, Introductory, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Perfect Human Rebirth, Practice Commentary

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 describes the qualities of the Holy Dharma and of those that teach us the Dharma. This teaching was given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche during the Fourteenth Kopan Meditation Course, Nepal, 1981. Read along with the transcript on our website at https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/chapter/lecture-1-qualities-dharma-and-teachers

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Making This Precious Human Rebirth Meaningful

Introductory, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Perfect Human Rebirth

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

This teaching on the great preciousness of our perfect human rebirth was given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Manjushri Institute, Cumbria, England, August 16-24, 1979. Read along with the transcript at https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/chapter/making-precious-human-rebirth-meaningful

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Your Mental Bureaucracy

Dharma in Daily Life, Introductory, Lama Yeshe, Lamrim (Path to Enlightenment), Renunciation

Understanding, the wisdom makes you happy. Always with you. But all the material, what you consider build up this life, is, when you need, not there. It’s there, it’s not there.

Lama Yeshe explains in his uniquely skillful and powerful way how our mental bureaucracy, the departments of ego and attachment, are working together constantly to confuse us and keep us from finding the door to everlasting peace and happiness. Instead, these departments divert us into thinking that everlasting happiness can be found by clinging to compounded phenomena that are in fact impermanent by nature. This talk was given at a five-day meditation retreat in Australia, March 28-April 1, 1975 and is the basis for Chapter Four in the LYWA free book “Ego, Attachment and Liberation.” You can read along with the unedited transcript at https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/your-mental-bureaucracy-audio-and-unedited-transcript

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Asking questions is so worthwhile

Karma, Lama Yeshe, Practice Commentary

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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