Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins with a reminder about the previous session’s discussion of how beneficial it is to recite the Buddha’s past bodhisattva life stories. He also talks about Lupa Rinpoche, a Nepalese lama who inspired many people to do nyung-näs and made a Dharma law that people could not kill animals in his past life.

Regarding the Buddha’s past bodhisattva life stories, Lama Zopa Rinpoche suggests that they need good chanting. In that way, it would appear in the public’s view like singing a song and become even more inspiring. Rinpoche also suggests reading The King of Prayers and The Eight Verses of Thought Transformation for those occasions (birthdays, weddings, etc.). It’s also good to set up extensive offerings, with many light offerings.

Rinpoche briefly discusses the six preparatory practices and then gives a detailed description of the preciousness of this human life, with eight freedoms and ten richnesses. He states that this perfect human rebirth is more precious than mountains of gold.

The first of these eight freedoms—the very beginning of the path to enlightenment—is freedom to practice Dharma by not being born in the hells. He explains the sufferings in each of the hell realms and highlights that freedom from these realms relies on two solutions: purifying past negative karma and vowing not to commit negative karma again. If you only practice purification without taking vows, then the purification practice becomes endless. With these two solutions, you can avoid the suffering of the lower realms and solve the difficulties of this life.

Rinpoche advises that right now, with this freedom to practice Dharma by not being born in a hell realm, you can achieve any happiness you want. If you wish to achieve liberation from samsara and full enlightenment for sentient beings, you can obtain that. Rinpoche says this freedom is more precious than mountains of gold because it allows you to achieve the happiness of future lives. However, it doesn’t last long; it can stop at any time; so, there’s no time for meaningless activities —there’s only time to practice Dharma.

Rinpoche explains that there are many ways to practice Dharma. However, what makes life most meaningful is bodhicitta, which depends on guru devotion. Continuously practicing bodhicitta transforms your life, like transforming iron into gold.

From April 10 to May 10, 2004, Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave extensive teachings during the Mahamudra Retreat at Buddha House in Australia. While the retreat focused on Mahamudra, Rinpoche also taught on a wide range of Lamrim topics. This retreat marked the beginning of a series of month-long retreats in Australia. Subsequent retreats were held in 2011, 2014, and 2018, hosted by the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion in Bendigo.

Find out more about Lama Zopa Rinpoche, his teachings and projects at https://fpmt.org/