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Kopan Course No. 10 (1977)

By Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Kopan Monastery, Nepal, 1976
(Archive #92)

These teachings were given by Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche at the Tenth Kopan Meditation Course held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal in 1977. The transcripts are lightly edited by Gordon McDougall, May, 2011.

You may also download the entire contents of these teachings in a pdf file.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching during the Ninth Meditation Course, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, 1976.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching during the Ninth Meditation Course, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, 1976.

Kopan Course No. 10 Index Page

The Index Page provides an outline of the topics discussed in each of the lectures.Click on the headings below to go directly to a particular lecture. 

Editor’s note: Besides some very poor quality tapes, many of the old reel-to-reel tapes were not labeled or were inaccurately labeled, and so it has been impossible to determine the chronological sequence of the lectures.

 

SECTION ONE

Lecture 1

  • Introduction
  • The reason we do pujas
  • The meaning of Dharma
  • The dangers of attachment

Lecture 2

  • Attachment to alcohol and drugs
  • The disadvantages of anger
  • The most dangerous ignorance is not knowing what self is
  • Real freedom is cessation of suffering
  • How to meditate

Lecture 3

  • The reason for the prayers
  • The need for a compassionate motivation
  • Happiness comes from others
  • Suffering comes from the self
  • Others are the cause of our liberation
  • What enlightenment is
  • Stories of Shakyamuni Buddha

Lecture 4

  • The Buddha and the monks Great Path and Small Path
  • Meditation: Watching the mind

SECTION TWO

Lecture 5

  • Lamrim motivation
  • Impermanence
  • The impermanence of the mind
  • An independent mind is impossible
  • Question and answer

Lecture 6

  • Delusions are not one with the mind
  • The differences between liberation and enlightenment
  • The need to clear all subtle obscurations
  • The gradual path to enlightenment
  • Reincarnation cannot be disproved
  • Meditation: The mind is beginningless, the delusions are beginningless

Lecture 7

  • Motivation: The need to be free in order to help others
  • How to eliminate fundamental ignorance
  • Shamatha and ethics
  • Prostrations are an antidote to pride

Lecture 8

  • Suffering comes from nonvirtue; happiness comes from virtue
  • Karma: Karmic results

SECTION THREE

Lecture 9

  • Dharmakaya and nirmanakaya
  • The five degenerations

Lecture 10

  • Thought transformation
  • Like the sun reflected in drops of water

Lecture 11

  • Motivation
  • Being mindful in break times
  • The shortcomings of harmful thoughts
  • The perfect human rebirth: You can obtain temporal wishes
  • The perfect human rebirth: You can be reborn in the pure lands
  • The perfect human rebirth: It is easy to achieve nirvana and enlightenment
  • The eight worldly dharmas
  • There is no choice but to practice Dharma
  • Bodhicitta: The importance of the good heart

Lecture 12

  • The benefits of bodhicitta: Relative bodhicitta is the door to the Mahayana
  • The benefits of bodhicitta: You become a son of the victorious ones
  • The benefits of bodhicitta: You create great merit
  • The benefits of bodhicitta: Meditation on the kindness of the mosquito
  • The benefits of bodhicitta: We purify obscurations

SECTION FOUR

Lecture 13

  • The benefits of bodhicitta: The fruit is never finished
  • The benefits of bodhicitta: We achieve enlightenment
  • Bodhicitta: Seven points of cause and effect
  • The essence of advice nectar
  • The seven point of cause and effect: Equanimity
  • The seven point of cause and effect: All sentient beings have been our mother and incredibly kind
  • The seven point of cause and effect: The kindness of the mother

Lecture 14

  • Equalizing and exchanging self and others
  • Thought transformation: The shortcomings of self-cherishing
  • The shortcomings of the self-cherishing thought: The four suffering results
  • Thought transformation: Self-cherishing, the evil butcher
  • Put the blame on self-cherishing

Lecture 15

  • The shortcomings of self-cherishing: The suffering in the six realms
  • The shortcomings of self-cherishing: Grasping onto possessions
  • Meditation on the shortcomings of self-cherishing
  • Thought transformation: Motivating on cherishing others
  • Meditating on cherishing others

Lecture 16

  • The suffering of the six realms
  • Meditating on purifying the lower realms
  • The biography of Atisha
  • Atisha: The lamrim and lo-jong texts
  • Atisha: His kindness
  • Tales of lineage lamas
  • What Dharma is
  • The five degenerations
  • Meditation on death

SECTION FIVE

Lecture 17

  • Motivation
  • Thought transformation: The preliminaries
  • Thought transformation: Preliminaries, setting up the altar
  • Thought transformation: Preliminaries, visualizing the merit field
  • Thought transformation: Preliminaries, the seven-limb prayer
  • Thought transformation: Preliminaries, the mandala offering
  • Respect for Dharma objects

Lecture 18

  • Motivation
  • Thought transformation: Preliminaries, the mandala offering (cont.)
  • Offering food

Lecture 19

  • Motivation
  • Perfect human rebirth
  • The benefits of saying refuge and bodhicitta prayers
  • Even animals work for the happiness of this life
  • Only virtue makes life meaningful

Lecture 20

  • Anger blocks obtaining perfect human rebirth
  • The eight worldly dharmas
  • Controlling delusions and self-cherishing
  • Thought transformation: Give the victory to others
  • The advantages of thought transformation

SECTION SIX

Lecture 21

  • Motivation
  • Renunciation
  • Remembering impermanence and death
  • The dissatisfaction of worldly life
  • The dissatisfaction of worldly life: Old age
  • Remembering the death process
  • The meaning of Shakyamuni Buddha’s mantra

Lecture 22

  • Death is certain
  • Remembering impermanence and death

Lecture 23

  • Being kind to the enemy
  • Meditation on the enemy
  • Enlightenment is impossible without the enemy
  • The enemy is more precious than a universe of jewels
  • The mosquito is the cause of your enlightenment
  • All sentient beings are the cause of your enlightenment

Lecture 24

  • Ignorance and self-grasping
  • The benefits of the lamrim
  • The benefits of bodhicitta

SECTION SEVEN

Lecture 25

  • Motivation
  • Dying with a virtuous and a nonvirtuous mind
  • Vajrasattva
  • Purification practices: The Thirty-five Buddhas
  • Purification practices: Milarepa’s mantra
  • Overcoming self-cherishing
  • Chenrezig mantra
  • The kindness of sentient beings

Lecture 26

  • Motivation
  • Cherishing others
  • Showing patience for sentient beings who have harmed us
  • Morality
  • Seeing the sentient beings as the guru