Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching, recorded on August 14, 2021, at Kopan Monastery in Nepal, by reminding us of how fortunate we are to wake up in the morning with a perfect human rebirth that is qualified by the eight freedoms and ten richnesses. The life we have is like a candle flame in the wind or a bubble in the water, and can be stopped at any time by death. Rinpoche references verse 55 from Nagarjuna’s Letter to a Friend.

Last night many people went to bed, thinking they had another day to live, but their body became a corpse instead. However, you were able to wake up. Every day you are able to wake up is a real birthday. If you can recognize impermanence and death, it is like skies of happiness! You didn’t die! You aren’t in hell! You weren’t reborn as a hungry ghost or an animal! You can still use your perfect human rebirth to collect merit and purify negative karma. Even reciting OM MANI PADME HUM without a bodhichitta motivation, you collect more merits than drops of water in the ocean, more than blades of grass growing on the hills.

When your breathing stops it will be difficult for your mind to be happy. Rinpoche quotes a verse from Gungthang Tenpai Dronme’s Verses of Advice for Meditating on Impermanence.

Rinpoche then reminds us of the motivation for listening to these teachings. At this time, while we are still breathing, it is not enough to achieve liberation from samsara for oneself. That alone would be a meaningful life, but it is not sufficient. The main purpose of life is to benefit sentient beings, not harming a single one, and more than that to free them from oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment by oneself alone. To do that, we must achieve full enlightenment. Therefore, with a motivation to accomplish this, we listen to the teachings.

Rinpoche offers advice to the gelongs about what brings happiness according to several verses of the Sutra of Individual Liberation (from sojong). You can hear Rinpoche discuss these verses and his commentary on each starting at 11:50 in the video.

Without morality, Rinpoche stresses, we cannot accomplish our own work, let alone successfully work for others. "Therefore," as noted in the Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva by Thogme Sangpo (verse 26cd), "to protect morality without wishing for samsara is a practice of a bodhisattva."

For a bodhisattva, those who offer harm are like a precious treasure (Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva, verse 27ab).

Therefore, cherish evil beings like a precious treasure, as advised in Eight Verses for Training the Mind by Langri Tangpa.

Rinpoche stresses that it is important to understand what this means. People who create harm for others create so much negative karma and have so much suffering. When you see that it is like you have found a precious treasure, a diamond, gold, a sapphire, a wish-granting jewel in the garbage. They are so precious and rare that you must cherish them, like how some cherish money so much! Why? Because by cherishing them you generate strong renunciation of your own samsara and sooo much compassion for them. From that, you generate strong bodhichitta, and from that, quick enlightenment. And with that you can liberate the numberless sentient beings from oceans of samsaric suffering. A jewel or money doesn’t do that, but this type of person can! So cherish them.

Another verse Rinpoche emphasizes in this teaching and suggests we write down in our prayer books is verse 28 from Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva:

Since even the hearer-listeners and solitary realizers, who achieve only the works for self,

Are seen to make effort, like putting out a fire on the head,

It is a practice of a bodhisattva to make effort to receive all qualities

For the sake of all transmigratory beings.

Write the above verse down so you can learn it, Rinpoche says. Otherwise, your motivation will always be controlled by the self-cherishing thought. “Today I don’t feel like it. I don’t want to recite my prayers or OM MANI PADME HUM. I feel too depressed.” Reading this verse helps you remember that you are doing it for all transmigratory beings, not just for yourself.

Rinpoche also suggests writing down verse 5.12 from Shantideva’s Bodhicharyavatara.

The one enemy you have is inside you—your mind, your anger. How you destroy this enemy is by practicing patience. By controlling the mind, everything else is controlled and you have no fear. The most important practice is to control your mind. Subduing one’s own mind is the teaching of Buddha, the essence of everything.

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For links to the transcript, translations, and more:

https://fpmt.org/lama-zopa-rinpoche-news-and-advice/advice-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche/the-most-important-practice-is-to-control-your-mind/