Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive

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.

How can I practice patience if no one gets angry with me? How will I find the opportunity to develop my mind in patience? The opportunity is completely due to the kindness of this person who is angry at me.

-Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains in detail why it is so important to practice patience with those who wish to harm us and with those who are angry with us. These teachings were given by Rinpoche at the Thirty-third Kopan Meditation Course, held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in 2000. You can listen along with the transcript on our website.

It is extremely important to reflect, to meditate, to think deeply about karma so that it does not become just a word.

-Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Lama Zopa Rinpoche leads a recitation of the Heart Sutra, the Foundation of All Good Qualities by Lama Tsong Khapa, and Shakyamuni Buddha’s mantra, before describing the importance of karma in everyday life. These teachings were given during a lamrim course led by Rinpoche at Maitreya Instituut, the Netherlands, in August 1990. You can also listen along with the transcript on our website.

When the subject of karma is missing, there’s no understanding that harming others means harming oneself. 

-Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Lama Zopa Rinpoche considers how Western psychology lacks an understanding of karma and discusses how it is not enough for a patient to attain superficial happiness if the deeper cause of suffering remains untreated. These teachings were given during a lamrim course led by Rinpoche at Maitreya Instituut, Emst, The Netherlands, in August 1990. You can also read along with the transcript on our website.

We have this negative karma collected on our mental continuum, and we have to do something to clean it, to purify it. If we do nothing, it piles up like mountains and we will experience life’s problems again and again, again and again, because the negative karma is still there.

-Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Lama Zopa Rinpoche urges us to face the facts: our problems arise from our own karma. We must recognize it and then do something about it. It is not enough to feel regret, we must apply the treatment, the method that will serve as an antidote to this poisonous karma piling up in our mind stream. Rinpoche gave these teachings on karma during a lamrim course at Maitreya Instituut, The Netherlands, in August 1990. You can follow along with the transcript on our website.