PODCAST · religion
Lama Zopa Rinpoche Essential Extracts
by Lama Zopa Rinpoche
In this podcast we focus on teachings of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, on topics of the Graduated Path to Enlightenment, the lamrim. The lamrim is a textual tradition that organizes Shakyamuni Buddha’s teachings into a complete step-by-step path to enlightenment. Each episode is an extract of a longer teaching, capturing the essence of what Rinpoche taught.
Episodes
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Manjushri’s Advice to Lama Tsongkhapa - The Quickest Way to Actualize Realisations
Rinpoche explains that Lama Tsongkhapa asked Manjushri “what is the quickest way to actualize realizations on the path to enlightenment?” Manjushri replied that there are four things. First, purify the obscurations. Obscurations can be purified because they are not in the nature of the mind. The...
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Nothing Creates More Merit Than Working for Sentient Beings and Serving the Guru
Working for a company focused solely on money, even making a billion dollars a day, is nothing compared to the merit we create by helping people practice Dharma and by fulfilling the wishes of our guru, Lama Zopa Rinpoche says. Rinpoche recalls the story of Lama Atisha checking on the…
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Motivate with Bodhicitta and Dedicate with Emptiness so Your Life Is Not Wasted
When one is upset or afraid—and also happy—remember bodhichitta so life is not wasted and everything we experience is dedicated to others, Rinpoche advises. When we recite mantras with a bodhichitta motivation, it becomes the cause to achieve enlightenment. Afterward, dedicate the merits for...
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The Most Scary Things Are the Beginningless and Endless Sufferings of Samsara
When we or others are experiencing sickness and pain, or obstacles of any kind, to recite the Heart Sutra while remembering that these obstacles are empty of existing from their own side is a powerful meditation for pacifying obstacles. The essence of Buddha’s 84,000 teachings is emptiness, which...
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How to Maximize Your Offerings Through Visualization
The Buddha said that we get exactly the same merit from making an offering, no matter how tiny, to a statue or painting of the Buddha as we would from making an offering to the actual Buddha. How can we maximize our offerings to be of most benefit? Rinpoche says that even if we have nothing more...
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The Unbelievable Merit of Offering to the Pores of the Guru
Rinpoche discusses the meaning of “pores of the guru” as expressed in the section on the guru’s qualities in Lama Chopa. Pores of the guru not only refers to other disciples of our own guru, but also to their family and animals. All of these pores are a higher object of offering than the…
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Experience Harm in a Positive Way
To practice the paramita of patience, we need someone who makes us angry or doesn’t give us what we want. Practicing the paramita of patience enables us to achieve enlightenment. Therefore, the person who makes us angry gives us enlightenment and then we are able to bring numberless sentient…
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Every Moment Is an Opportunity to Practice Dharma
Even the most mundane activities of daily life provide us the opportunity to practice Dharma, Rinpoche says. While we are working, being busy, or even arguing with someone, part of the mind can recognize that what appears to be real is actually a total hallucination. Truly existent I and other...
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All Problems Can Be Utilized in the Path to Enlightenment
It is impossible to escape problems while suffering in samsara, but we can utilize any disturbing experience in the path to enlightenment. Rinpoche explains how we can take on any suffering and use it to destroy our ego and self-cherishing thought. This makes it possible to achieve enlightenment...
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Everything the Guru Does Brings Us You to Enlightenment
The guru is the essence of all buddhas, Rinpoche reminds us. Therefore, everything the guru does is the holy actions of all the buddhas. It is essential to remember these two things, otherwise we can view our guru as an ordinary being when anger, attachment, or heresy arises, and we can destroy…
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Give Away Your Body, Enjoyments, and Merit to Others
We can generate loving-kindness by offering the numberless sentient beings in every realm our body, enjoyments, and merit. When we give all of our past, present, and future merit to the numberless sentient beings, they get whatever they want and whatever they need. This enables them to become…
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Meditate on Emptiness While Walking
Walking for exercise, sightseeing, or shopping, can all be used to meditate on impermanence and emptiness. Here Rinpoche offers guided meditations on how, in particular, to think about emptiness, to habituate our mind in a positive way to looking at everything that appears to be real as false....
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All Our Happiness Comes from Those Who Harm Us
What is the benefit of having compassion for those who mistreat us and how is our survival, comfort, happiness—and ultimately—enlightenment dependent on the kindness of others, especially those who we consider an enemy? All of our past, present, and future happiness come from our virtuous…
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By Pleasing the Guru, We Collect Unimaginable Merit, Purify Negative Karma, and Achieve Realizations
What enables us to quickly achieve enlightenment, Rinpoche explains, is correctly following the guru, the virtuous friend. For example, if for one thousand eons we made charity of our limbs and dedicated our merit—we would collect this much merit in one second by following the guru’s advice and...
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Cherishing Others Opens the Door to Happiness
The door to all suffering comes from the self-cherishing thought, only thinking of our own happiness, Rinpoche warns. This not only harms us, but also harms numberless sentient beings now, has harmed them in the past from beginningless rebirths, and will harm them in the future. Conversely,...
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Believing in a Real I Creates the Root of Samsara
There is no such thing as a “real I,” and subsequently, it is not possible for anything to be a “real mine,” Rinpoche says. In the first second, our mind merely imputes I on our aggregates. Then, in the next second, this I appears back to us as one hundred percent true, and we believe it. We…
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Because We Can’t Stand Suffering for Ourself or Others, We Must Take Refuge
Whether we understand the qualities of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha or not, if we open our hearts to them and rely on them, we will have an unmistaken refuge—like catching hold of a rope when we are about to fall into a fire. When we come to understand how Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha free us from...
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The Guru Appearing in Ordinary Form Is Most Kind to Us
Our gurus appear to us according to our impure karma, in an ordinary aspect, showing mistakes and having delusions. Because of this ordinary aspect, we are able to see the guru, communicate with the guru, and receive teachings and advice. Without their manifesting in this ordinary aspect we would...
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A Long Life Should Be Used to Benefit Others
The purpose of taking a long-life initiation is not to gain more time for creating negative karma through harming ourselves and other sentient beings. Rather, the purpose is to pacify life obstacles and to use the resulting long life to collect virtue, to abandon the causes of suffering, and to...
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From Birth to Death We Believe in the Hallucination Projected by Ignorance
What would it be like to experience the world without the hallucination of true existence being projected onto everything we experience? We need to become a buddha for this to happen, Rinpoche explains. Right now the gross negative imprints left by ignorance from beginningless rebirths decorate...
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The Real Enemy Is Our Self-Cherishing Thought
All of our failures, problems, illnesses, and suffering from beginningless rebirths come from cherishing ourselves, Rinpoche warns. If we want happiness, we must start cherishing others. If someone harms us, instead of blaming them, direct the anger toward the real enemy—self-cherishing. This…
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Disrespecting the Virtuous Friend Brings Eons of Suffering, Devotion to the Virtuous Friend Brings Enlightenment
What is the “virtuous friend?” Rinpoche explains that the virtuous friend is all the holy actions of all the buddhas. These manifest in our own guru, therefore, to disrespect our guru—with anger, heresy, complaints, negative thoughts, and so forth—is to disrespect every single buddha. There is no...
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The Real Meaning of Practicing Dharma Is to Renounce This Life
What does it mean to practice Dharma? Renouncing this life, Rinpoche says. Anger, ignorance, pride, relationship issues—all of these problems come from attachment to this life. Practicing Dharma means renouncing this attachment like throwing out poison because of all the harm it can cause us....
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Any Activity Can Be a Mindfulness Meditation on Emptiness
Whatever we are doing, even while at the beach or the supermarket, we can engage in one of three mindfulness meditations on emptiness, Rinpoche suggests. For example, we can be mindful that everything we are experiencing is a total hallucination, like a dream in which things appear but are not...
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Every Single Thing Comes from Your Mind
Hell, enlightenment, samsara, nirvana, what is true and false come from our mind. Whatever we see and hear, whatever we touch and smell, if someone likes us or is angry with us, whether we experience anything as good or bad from birth to death—all of this started with our mind. It came from our...
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See the Guru’s Ordinary Aspect as One’s Own Lack of Merit
If we want more profit in our lives and less loss, we must see the guru as a buddha. In order to do this, the thought seeing their qualities as pure must be so powerful that it overwhelms the thought seeing their shortcomings or mistakes. When our guru seems to make mistakes, one way to view this...
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By Changing the Channel of Your Mind, You Can Stop Problems
We can change our minds in a positive way to mitigate problems; or we can also follow negative thoughts, our ordinary mind, to experience more problems. Using the analogy of the mind being like a television, Rinpoche says that we can change the channel of our mind to enlightenment or hell, to...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
In this podcast we focus on teachings of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, on topics of the Graduated Path to Enlightenment, the lamrim. The lamrim is a textual tradition that organizes Shakyamuni Buddha’s teachings into a complete step-by-step path to enlightenment. Each episode is an extract of a longer teaching, capturing the essence of what Rinpoche taught.
HOSTED BY
Lama Zopa Rinpoche
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Lama Zopa Rinpoche Essential Extracts have?
Lama Zopa Rinpoche Essential Extracts currently has 27 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Lama Zopa Rinpoche Essential Extracts about?
In this podcast we focus on teachings of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, on topics of the Graduated Path to Enlightenment, the lamrim. The lamrim is a textual tradition that organizes Shakyamuni Buddha’s teachings into a complete step-by-step path to enlightenment. Each episode is an extract of a longer...
How often does Lama Zopa Rinpoche Essential Extracts release new episodes?
Lama Zopa Rinpoche Essential Extracts has 27 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Lama Zopa Rinpoche Essential Extracts?
You can listen to Lama Zopa Rinpoche Essential Extracts on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Lama Zopa Rinpoche Essential Extracts?
Lama Zopa Rinpoche Essential Extracts is created and hosted by Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
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