Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive

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.

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.

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.

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.