Lama Zopa Rinpoche – the Essence of the Kopan Course Is Good Heart
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Kopan November Course 2014 Teachings by Kyabje Zopa Rinpoche Hosted by Kopan Monastery Kathmandu, Nepal 29 November-10 December 2014 These transcripts were typed by Joan Nicell simultaneously with the teachings. They were lightly edited, in most cases without listening to the audio recordings, by various participants at the retreat and again by Joan Nicell for FPMT Education Services. They are meant to be read in conjunction with listening to the recordings of Rinpoche’s teachings. All errors are the fault of the transcriber. A checked word-for-word transcript will be available in the future. © FPMT Inc., 2014 Kopan November Course 2014 The Essence of the Kopan Course is Good Heart [29 November 2014, 2.00 p.m.] KOPAN 20141129 S1 14:00 Lama Zopa Rinpoche – The Essence of the Kopan Course is Good Heart Thanks for coming to Kopan I don’t know what to say. Anyway, from the bottom of my heart I want to express really a billion, zillion thanks of appreciation to all of you, my brothers and sisters. Not just in one lifetime, I’m not talking about for just one life being brothers and sisters, I’m talking about being brothers and sisters from beginningless rebirths. We are an old family. An old family. This is not just a Himalayan mountain experience, a journey, it is not just that. It is not just like trekking in the Himalayan mountains, a Himalayan mountain experience, a journey. So many problems in the world – war, disease… In the world you can see how many countries have war, are attacking each other. Even within countries there is civil war, so many [wars] between sects. They war with each other for years and years, for a long time killing each other. [First] they develop the country by people getting an education in university, college, and schools. (I don’t mean they go backward! I mean school, college, university. Yes, we do go back: after we die and reincarnate again we go to school, college, and university. We go back but I don’t think in the same life we go back.) With all this education for years and years, they develop the country, their families, spending billions, zillions, trillions of dollars to build on and on, then [the buildings are] bombed and gone, destroyed. You see? For so many years they got an education and developed things with billions, zillions, trillions on and on of money, but it is all destroyed in one day, gone, by a bomb, by different weapons. Besides war, there are many diseases. So many people are dying by cancer, even whole families gradually die by cancer. You always hear of it, it is increasing more and more. When I was in Buxa, in India, West Bengal, ?Chatagori, the end of Assam, in Buxa… When India was under the British, at that time it was the place where Mahatma Gandhi was imprisoned. It became a nunnery. When monks escaped from Tibet, Lhasa and other parts of Tibet, I escaped from Tibet through Bhutan to India, when Tibet was taken by mainland China. Mahatma Gandhi-ji, his house was where there was barbed wire. It had two storeys, around it was barbed wire. That old house was where Mahatma Gandhi was imprisoned. The nuns lived there; it became a nunnery. Then later the representative of His Holiness stayed there, looking after the monks. Where Prime Minister Nehru had been imprisoned that became the colleges of Sera Je and Sera Me, where the monks, not all the monks, sixty or something monks, stayed inside it. The beds were all like this (Rinpoche shows with his hands how they were arranged side by side). All like that, the beds. Then also outside there were beds like this, very small beds. They were all the way up to the door, even outside. There was barbed wire and a ditch, where the monks lived and also where we used to do pujas or meditation, prayers, as a group. That was the place where Prime Minister Nehru was imprisoned. That place was where so many people were killed and 1 Kopan November Course 2014 imprisoned. On the mountains there were huge windows. It was a castle, with huge windows of iron built on the hills during that time. I forgot what I was saying. It is suddenly gone. Rinpoche gets TB in Buxa At that time there was a very famous sickness that we had at that time, not TV but TB. So many monks got sick [with TB] due to the conditions. They came from Tibet, a cold place, to India, which was very hot, [because of] the conditions and the food [they got sick]. In Tibet you didn’t hear of TB at that time. Cancer you never heard of at that time. I also had small TB but I recovered. I stayed in a hospital in Delhi for some years. I was benefacted by an old lady who was a member of the Buddhist association in London, Mrs. Bedi, who started a school for young lamas of the four sects, Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, and Gelug. I was there when I found out I had TB. First I had smallpox with Lama [Chogyam] Trungpa’s relative. He is called Lama Yeshe. In Scotland he has a big [piece of] land there. I had smallpox, then I went back to school and got TB. He also got TB, then we went back to hospital. Mrs. Bedi was the second English nun, the first one was ordained by Domo Geshe Rinpoche. She was probably the only one he ordained in his life. She was the first among the Westerners. The second was Mrs. Bedi, Freda Bedi, from London, England. She was a Christian, then she lived in Sikkim and became a Buddhist. Her daughter and son went to university with Prime Minister Nehru’s son and daughter. They became friends so she was close to Jawaharlal Nehru. Of the Tibetan people who escaped from Tibet (those who were able to escape and come [to India], many did not come but of those who escaped), Nehru asked her to look after the monks who came from Tibet. It was so extremely hot. Those who wanted to continue to study philosophy, Buddhist philosophy, those who wanted to study could come to Buxa. There were 1500 monks. The rest went to other places to work on the roads. At that time India was making a lot of roads in the mountains for the army. So she [Freda Bedi] was the second [Western nun]. Later she became a Tibetan Buddhist nun ordained by His Holiness the Karmapa, the head of the Karma Kagyu, the head of this Kagyu sect. The world situation is like this, with so many diseases. Now the new one is ebola in Africa, as you know. [People are] dying very soon. Every day so many people are dying. In Africa thousands and thousands are already dead. New diseases come at different times. The times are degenerating, going down, with more problems, various problems, [such as] earthquakes. So many things are happening, more and more disasters, many, many. Rinpoche’s advice for stopping the spread of ebola in Africa Two students from Africa, two who are very, very dedicated, two ladies from Africa… I think they are from where the more rich people are living, that place. I know there are many people dying, I heard the news, so I suggested to them to build one buddha statue, not of Shakyamuni Buddha, not this aspect, but the aspect of the Naga King. The name of the buddha is Naga King, with a white face, the rest of body is blue. [I advised them] to build that, then a school, a monastery, a nunnery, so that people don’t get leprosy disease or cancer, so that skin cancer and skin infections, which are caused by nagas, decrease, stop. I saw that in a Dharma text. I suggested to [one of the ladies to] build that statue in the country where the disease [ebola] is happening. She was going to do that but it took quite a bit of time because it is very difficult to communicate. 1 Kopan November Course 2014 Somebody has to give the land and all that, so it didn’t happen. Not [that a Naga King statue needed to be built] in every place, but in the place called Guinea. The place called Guinea came out [in my observations]. Unless she herself goes there it is difficult. She wanted to dedicate herself [to this cause] even if she gets the disease and dies, but it looks like it can’t be built. Then [I suggested that people there] wear the mantra Liberating the Body, Speech, and Mind from the Bondage of Spirit Possession. It came out best for her to recite this mantra but for other people with ebola to wear the mantra, so I told her to do this rather than build the statue, so she rang the president’s house. I don’t know who the president is, [but the idea was] for him to wear it and ask the people to wear it. She asked for fifty people to wear this mantra first. He said that from fifty people if twenty people recover, he will announce it to the whole country. [That this happen] I asked here in the [Kopan] nunnery and monastery that they do the Medicine Buddha puja composed by the 5th Dalai Lama, the incarnation that is the 5th Dalai Lama. The 1st Dalai Lama, Gyelwa Gendun Drub, founded Tashi Lhunpo Monastery, the Panchen Lama’s monastery in Tibet, in upper Tibet.