Taking refuge, now, becomes a very serious matter or serious practice, very fundamental, like the earth is used for many things, roads, houses, to grow food, crops, plants and so forth; the earth is used for so many things, for happiness.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche
These teachings on the nature of the mind and the stages of the path, including extensive teachings on refuge, were given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the Twenty-Eighth Kopan Meditation Course in November, 1995. You can read along with the transcript at https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/chapter/lecture-nine-nature-mind


The Nature of the Mind on the Path

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The meditation practice is like the seed. The actual body of meditation, the practice, that is like the seed and purifying the hindrances and the accumulation of merit are like the soil and water.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains why we must prepare the ground of our mind with merit accumulation and karmic purification so that the seeds of our practice of listening, contemplation, and meditation can grow into realizations on the path to attain enlightenment for the sake of all mother sentient beings. These teachings were given by Rinpoche at Manjushri Institute, Cumbria, England, August 16-24, 1979.


Our Practice Is Like A Seed

Even giving just one single tiny grain of rice to one single sentient being will accumulate infinite merit when you are motivated to give by the precious wish to attain enlightenment to benefit numberless sentient beings.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Zopa Rinpoche discusses the power and importance of the precious bodhicitta during teachings on Geshe Langri Tangpa’s Eight Verses of Thought Transformation, given at Manjushri Institute, Cumbria, England, August 16-24, 1979. Read along with the transcript on the LYWA website.

 
 
 

The Loving Compassionate Precious Thought for Enlightenment

Every single phenomena is like that. There’s merely gathered, the base to be labeled, then due to that, then mere imputation, then only after that, then you have that appearance.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
In these teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche given during a lamrim retreat held at Vajrapani Institute in Boulder Creek, California, from August 20-23, 2006, Rinpoche explains how everything we experience is merely imputed by our minds by using the example of a child who is too young to speak. If a child doesn’t know the name of something, does it exist? You can follow along with the transcript here.


How We Name the World

 
Compassion should be at the heart of our life, at the center of all our relationships and in all our practices.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Zopa Rinpoche gives the transmission of the mantra and dharani of Chenrezig, the Buddha of Compassion and explains why reciting these mantra helps us to develop compassion from the center of our heart for all beings and especially for those we see as the enemy. Rinpoche illuminates how the path to enlightenment depends first on developing immeasurable compassion for each and every being. These teachings were given by Rinpoche during a Maitreya puja at Shakyamuni Center in Taichung, Taiwan, in March 2007. You can follow along with the transcript on our website.


The Living Heart of Compassion

If you don’t practice Dharma, don’t learn Dharma, don’t meditate, if you don’t pray to have realization of the path to enlightenment, at least even the path to liberation, if you don’t do that then so many sentient beings have to suffer for you to live, for your happiness, it is so unimaginable, unbearable, so unbearable.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Everything we do to keep this human body alive inevitably harms other sentient beings and thus accumulates negative karma. Rinpoche describes this harm and the incredible power of the object to quickly accumulate huge amounts of positive merit. Contemplate how this power of the object can help us accumulate more than enough positive merit to offset the constantly accumulating negative karma of living. May we accumulate more than enough positive merit to quickly and more quickly constantly progress on the path to enlightenment for the sake of all mother sentient beings. Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave this Dharma talk prior to a refuge ceremony at Amitabha Buddhist Centre, Singapore, on January 18, 2009. You can read along with the transcript on our website.

 

The Nature of the Mind on the Path

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