Ask the Lamas
Lama Yeshe's and Lama Zopa Rinpoche's teachings contain
replies to hundreds of questions on all manner of topics. Quite
possibly the answer
to your question can be found within one or more of the published
— or even unpublished — teachings in the Archive.
You are encouraged to use the search function of our website
(see the sidebar on the left) to see if your questioned has
already been addressed somewhere in our current online and
print publications.
Answers to some of the more "frequently asked questions" are
below. E-mails that we receive through this page are answered
by our staff, and where we are able to
link you to answers given by the Lamas,
we do so. Please browse through the questions below before
sending
us your
question,
in case it has already been answered.
Many people ask if they can contact the lamas directly. Lama
Yeshe passed away in 1984, and unfortunately we are unable
to forward questions directly to Lama Zopa Rinpoche. But there
are many resources available with advice from Rinpoche. You
can find advice on a variety of topics in Rinpoche's Online
Advice Book. On the FPMT website you can refer to
Rinpoche's
"Advice" page, and read through an FAQ
for Discovering Buddhism at Home students. If
you still feel you want to try to contact Rinpoche, refer
to Rinpoche's
contact page also on the FPMT website.
For those wishing to submit a question to the Archive, please
note that some browsers have trouble with the submission form.
If you receive an error trying to access the form, simply
send an email to info@LamaYeshe.com
with "Ask the Lamas" in the subject line, and include
your name, email address and question.
1. What should I be doing as daily practice?
 This
is a question you’ll want to ask your own teacher, if
you have one, as it varies. Otherwise, you can start by referring
to Rinpoche's advice
for establishing a daily practice.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche often recommends a daily meditation practice
on Shakyamuni Buddha, such as the one found in the practice
booklet shown on the left. This booklet and others like it
can be purchased through the FPMT
Foundation Store. The Archive has also published a small
booklet by Rinpoche with a recommended daily practice titled
Daily Purification: A Short
Vajrasattva Practice.
Also, as the foundation of Buddhism is the Lam Rim or the
path to enlightenment, consisting of a series of topics to
be studied and meditated upon, everyone needs to understand
it. You can’t go wrong by studying it as well. In fact
advanced meditators have sometimes spent a year or more meditating
on just a single topic. Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrote a basic Lam
Rim text for westerners. It combines study and practice, showing
you how this is done, and is titled Wish-Fulfilling
Golden Sun.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s book Illuminating
the Path to Enlightenment provides a detailed
explanation of the Path to Enlightenment. For a brief
overview of the Lam Rim read the words of our venerable
director Dr. Nick Ribush in Outline
of the Path to Enlightenment.
2. [Editor's Note: In some recent
e-letters from late 2005, we included teachings on powa,
the transference of consciousness at the time of death. One
of our readers wrote questioning why one would focus on the
teachings about death when it seems much more helpful to focus
on teachings which help us change the way we live. He asks:]
In the humble view of this practitioner, what we need
most in these times is not only the sense that "we"
(whatever that might be in the mind of the reader) will go
on past our personal death—and perhaps all that does
give comfort to many of us—but what what we need most,
perhaps, at least equally as much is to discover how, while
we are here in this lifetime, we can act in a way that is
compassionate and in which the suffering of other sentient
beings is lessened by our actions.
[Director Nick Ribush replies:]
Teaching reality isn't to give comfort, it's to explain the
way things are. What goes on is not the gross or subtle mind
but the most subtle level of consciousness...as explained
by many lamas and, indeed, by the Buddha himself. So, if that's
what happens to everybody and nobody gets out of here alive
and there is something we can do to direct our mind in the
right direction at the time of death, I kind of see it as
a duty to make all that known.
Neither is that contradictory to making this life as compassionate
and helpful to others as possible. In fact, that's the secret
to having a good death. The two totally go together.
I think if you look at the teachings we have published and
put on our Web site you'll find that the great preponderance
is towards making this life meaningful by living with compassion,
not on transferring the consciousness at the time of death.
We try to make available a wide range of teachings, not all
of which will resonate with everybody. Still, I hope that
most will resonate with most. And if we put out the same message
every time, that's not going to be good either, nor would
it reflect the incredible variety of teachings that Lama Yeshe
and Lama Zopa Rinpoche imparted.
Thank you so much for your interest and feedback...keep it
coming.
3. When we talk about study from a Buddhist point of
view, how does one actually really "study"? We can
meditate as much as possible, we can also read a lot of books
etc, but if one wants to really study Dharma properly, how
does one go about doing it??
Reading books and contemplating their meaning is a form
of study. From books, transcripts, oral teachings we learn
the details of Lam
Rim and Mind
Transformation.
We must revisit them every day to ensure that our familiarity
with them grows
and our understanding deepens. As we reflect on aspects of
the path and check to see how we are progressing, we are
engaging in the form of meditation known as Vipassana.
In all Buddhist traditions, beginning with the Theravadin,
reflection
on our meditative experiences is part of the path.
Our tradition, the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, especially
emphasizes the need for study. In Rock
Climbing Without Arms: Study as the Basis of Meditation our director, Dr. Nick
Ribush explains the importance of study in our religious
practice.
Thus you can should a short period of time every day in
analytical meditation on Dharma topics, such as Lam Rim.
Lam Rim is the path to enlightenment, so all topics are contained
within it. If we just sit “like a vegetable”,
as one lama put it, without analyzing our experiences to
determine how well they reflect the details of the path,
then we can easily ‘fall off’ the Buddhist path
by failing to correct faults. We can think we are enlightened
when we are not. The criticality of studying – analyzing
the results of your meditation – was certainly understood
in the Buddha’s time as well as you find the injunction
to pause and reflect before moving onto the next stage of
attainment in the early Abhidharma scriptures.
Typical subjects of study are: The
Graduated Path to Liberation, Generating
the Bodhimind, and The
Twelve Links of Interdependent Origination.
4. I want to request a practice from a teacher, eg. Lama
Zopa Rinpoche. How do I know when I am ready to, and how do
I go about requesting such a practice?
First of all you need to meet the Lama to request teachings
from him or her. You can usually contact lamas through their
organizations, by attending teachings, for example. Often
the Dharma centers can facilitate requesting teachings. These
centers often have websites with schedules. In the case of
Lama Zopa Rinpoche or one of his centers, see the
FPMT website.
If you feel a particular attraction to certain teachings,
either ask the lama before or after class or during a private
interview with the teacher. If the
lama feels you and his other students are not ready for a
teaching, then the lama may delay or offer prerequisite teachings.
It is up to the lama to decide if you are ready for a teaching.
You don’t determine when you are ready for a teaching – the
lama decides that.
5. What do you think I would gain from attending a pilgrimage?
Are there more important things to do as a Buddhist?
The most important thing to do as a Buddhist is to transform
your mind. Buddhism is rich in the means to do this — for
example pilgrimages and other activities. Study and meditation,
however are very important because it’s what is in
your mind that makes the pilgrimage a pilgrimage. If this
were not so, then the bacteria on your skin and in your body
would also be making pilgrimage, along with horses, flies
and dogs who go along too. So if you don’t understand
how to use your mind to transform your mundane trip into
a pilgrimage, then you aren’t going on a pilgrimage
even if you do go. If you don’t know how to transform
suffering to the path, and have no love and compassion for
all beings, then the amount of benefit you can get from a
pilgrimage, as a Buddhist, is minimal. Perhaps some study
first would be best since the benefits of a pilgrimage depend
on your mind. The more you can apply the principles of the
path to your pilgrimage the greater the benefit.
If you do want to go on a pilgrimage, our article The
Eight Places of Buddhist Pilgrimage by Jeremy
Russell can offer some suggestions.
6. I have heard that some Lamas practice a kind of protector
practice called Dorje Shugden which is not approved by HH
The Dalai Lama. Is it true? And what is Dorje Shugden?
Shugden is a spirit or mundane Dharma protector that some
believe is a fully enlightened being. He has become a rallying
cry for some who wish to return Tibet to a theocracy (the
Dalai Lama wants democracy) with one school or sect as the
official ‘church’. No FPMT center does this practice
and all fully support His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Lama Zopa
Rinpoche gives extensive advice regarding this practice in
his Advice
Book. For more information, see http://www.tibet.com/dholgyal/index.html.
7. I have been practicing within another school of Buddhism
for about a year, but when I first got into Tibetan Buddhism,
I spontaneously put up pictures of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa
Rinpoche and put offerings before them. My question is that
I don’t want to break any vows by studying with a teacher
other than my root guru, which I am seriously contemplating
as I FEEL that your lineage is the one.
All authentic Buddhist schools descend from the Buddha Shakyamuni,
whose teachings manifest in many ways to train different
types of students. Authentic teachings exhibit the four traditional ‘marks’ of
Buddhism that distinguish it from Hinduism, Jainism, and
other ‘isms’. They are: all conditioned existence
is impermanent, all deluded experiences are suffering, all
phenomena are empty and lack self-identity, and nirvana/liberation
is true peace. If the teachings of your school show these
marks, they are Buddhist teachings. However there’s
great variety to be found in various schools of Buddhism.
As it traveled to various countries it took on some of the
characteristics of that country. It is definitely
wrong to think that only one teacher is right and that the
others are wrong or that one school is right and the others
wrong. The others exist to help students appropriate to each.
The great Atisha had something like 158 gurus and respected
them all as Buddha.
You should continue to see your teacher as a Buddha but
you can also make connections with a Tibetan lama. You may
find Alexander Berzin’s book Relating to a Spiritual
Teacher: Building a Healthy Relationship (published
by Snow Lion, 2000) and available free, on-line at http://www.berzinarchives.com/e-books/index.html.
It explains the traditional relationship that students in
Tibet had with their teachers as well as cultural differences
in the west that lead to confusion. It also may assist you
in determining if a given teacher is the right teacher for
you.
8. What can I do if I have problem in my practice but
I have no guru to ask. I am a new beginner. I know nothing
but I have no place to ask.
Though it’s possible to study Buddhism without a personal
teacher, it is difficult to get an answer when you have a
problem. One thing you can do is take on-line or correspondence
courses offered
through the FPMT. These courses are designed to help
newcomers who are isolated. You can address your problems
to the teacher of the class. Or check the same website to
see if there is a center near you. Most centers have a resident
teacher – and you can ask him/her.
You can still progress until a teacher appears in person.
In Illuminating the
Path by His Holiness the Dalai Lama,
he was asked a similar question:
Question: Do we need a guru to get enlightened
or is it sufficient just to study Dharma, live a moral
life, attend
teachings and practice meditation?
His Holiness: Of course it is possible to practice,
study and lead a moral life without actually seeking a
guru.
However, you must understand that when you talk about enlightenment,
you are not talking about something that can be attained
within the next few years but about a spiritual aspiration
that may, in some cases, take many lifetimes and eons.
If
you do not find a qualified teacher to whom you can entrust
your spiritual well-being then, of course, it is more effective
to entrust yourself to the actual Dharma teachings and
practice on that basis.
I can tell you a story related
to this. Dromtönpa
was a great spiritual master who truly embodied the altruistic
teachings of exchanging self and others. In fact, in the
latter part of his life, he dedicated himself to serving
people who suffered from leprosy. He lived with them and
eventually lost his own life to this disease, which damaged
his chin in particular. As Dromtönpa lay dying, his
head rested on the lap of one of his chief disciples, Potowa,
and he noticed that Potowa was crying. Then Potowa said, “After
you pass away, in whom can we entrust our spiritual well-being?
Who can we take as our teacher?” Dromtönpa replied, “Don’t
worry. You’ll still have a teacher after I’m
gone—the tripitaka, the threefold collection of the
teachings of the Buddha. Entrust yourself to the tripitaka;
take the tripitaka as your teacher.” However, as
we progress along the spiritual path, at some point we
will
definitely meet an appropriate and suitable teacher.
Thus whether your guru has not yet appeared or has passed
away, take the teachings as your teacher.
9. Can you give me advice on how to live with a mentally
unsound person? My partner also has a disease but doesn’t
take care of himself.
This sounds like a very painful situation for you. Because
you live with this person and love him, you also suffer because
you can’t cure his mental problems or even get him
to stop acting destructively. It’s also, alas, all
too common. Actually, this is how the Buddhas see us all!
We are all mentally unsound and so create our own misery
and we all act destructively. The Buddhas do their best to
help us but we are even better at ignoring them.
It may help to read Lama
Zopa's advice on cherishing others and his short teaching
on
making each moment of our lives meaningful. The
Archive publication Making
Life Meaningful covers this topic in much greater detail.
You may also find benefit in doing some of Lama
Zopa's recommended practices.
10. I wonder if there is any chance you could re-print
Lama Zopa's "The Healing Buddha: A Practice for the Prevention
and Healing of Disease" (Boston: Wisdom Publications,
1994). Wisdom has not carried this for some years.
This book is now available through the FPMT
Foundation Store as are (or will be) most of the
other prayers, practices and sadhanas that Wisdom used
to publish. Be sure to search the site for other
things in which you might be interested.
11. How do we know for certain that there is a future
life after death? Do we have to accept on faith that there
is a future life, or is there a way to know?
The Buddha said most emphatically that we should not accept
anything He said because He said it. Instead we should investigate
and determine if it was true or helpful. He said there are
three kinds of faith. The most inferior type is ‘blind
faith’. Then you have faith that is the result of study;
and then there is faith that is based on knowing. It’s
difficult to know for certain that there are future lives
until we reach the point where we can remember our past lives
and then deduce that we will have future ones. We can use
the teachings of Lam Rim to convince ourselves of the truth
of this teaching. One way to proceed is to accept the Buddha’s
teaching on future lives as a possible hypothesis until you
do have greater insight. As His Holiness the Dalai Lama says
in his book Illuminating
the Path: "This faith is not developed
from the words of the Buddha alone but, as we have seen,
on the basis of your own critical analysis" (page 7). So
Buddhists actually ‘work at’ developing faith
by engaging in critical analysis of the teachings.
Tsenshab Serkong Rinpoche's teaching titled Renunciation contains
some advice on how to consider things about which we have
no direct knowledge. You may also benefit from reading Dr.
Alex Berzin’s explanation of karma and future lives.
12. I would like to know whether Vajrasattva practice
is enough to keep one away from lower rebirths. How can lower
rebirths or unfortunate life situations be avoided?
We avoid lower rebirths and unfortunate life situations
by eliminating their causes. The causes are elimination of
the ten non-virtuous actions and cultivation of their opposites,
the virtuous actions. The Dalai Lama says in his book Illuminating
the Path: "If
you engage in such an ethical discipline, you will establish
the conditions for attaining a favorable existence
in your next life" (page 68).
As Dr. Ribush says in the beginning
of our publication Daily
Purification: A Short Vajrasattva Practice: "Atisha
practiced purification in this way because of his deep
realization
of the psycho-mechanics of negative karma, especially its
four fundamentals: negative karma is certain to bring suffering;
it multiplies exponentially; if eradicated, it cannot bring
its suffering result; and once created, it never simply
disappears."
Practicing Vajrasattva
will purify your negative karma and keep it from multiplying.
This will produce beneficial results
right away if combined with virtuous living, however your
practice will be of minimal benefit unless you combine it
with mental transformation.
13. What is the value of prayer in Buddhism?
As Mahayanists we do not believe that the Buddha passed
away beyond reach. We believe He and other Buddhas are ever-present.
In Tibet they often revealed themselves in spontaneous manifestation.
It is by supplicating them that we request their blessing
and create a connection between them and us. Since we ourselves
have little ability to help ourselves, we rely on the blessings
of the Buddhas that come to us through prayer. In fact the
different Buddhas are specialists in different kinds of aid.
For example Tara is of great benefit at protecting women
and children and other helpless beings from terror and fear.
Praying to Tara does work. In the same way, you can pray
to Medicine Buddha for healing.
For more information on the benefits of praying to Tara
see Tara the Liberator,
by Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
14. Please can you advise me how to find a qualified
spiritual teacher? I feel urgent need of a Master and specific
personal guidance. How do you find own guru as soon as possible?
What´s the practice that will bring my teacher to met?
In Tibet you would have gone to the local monastery.
The head of that monastery would naturally have been your
spiritual advisor. Some people of course sought
out other teachers but it didn’t need to be so complicated.
For most it wasn’t. So perhaps you can research a local
center. See the
FPMT website for a list of centers associated
with FPMT. Another important method is to pray to the Buddha
to meet your spiritual teacher. You might speed things up
by using online directories—such as the one on the Shambhala
Sun website—to look
for Buddhist centers nearby. There’s no specific practice
for finding your guru. By praying to the Buddha you will
activate karma
you
have
formed in past lives with teachers and they will come.
You may also find this book beneficial: Relating to
a Spiritual Teacher: Building a Healthy Relationship by
Dr. Alexander Berzin. You can purchase it from Snow
Lion Publications or download
it free.
Because Buddhism is not a part of our cultural heritage,
we do not really understand how it should ‘work’.
We sometimes expect a guru to function as a therapist, for
example. We may expect a far more personal relationship than
the role entails. This book makes it clear what a guru is
and is not and how we relate to him/her when we’ve
found our guru.
15. Can you please tell me what is the diet of a Buddhist?
The diet of a Buddhist varies with the Buddhist. Because
a Buddhist attempts to not harm others, many Buddhists
are vegetarian. In some countries ordained monks and
nuns are
vegetarian but other people eat meat. Often even the laity
will refrain from meat on certain days. The Tibetan climate
made it very difficult to grow vegetables, so many Tibetan
monks and nuns ate meat from necessity. His Holiness the
Dalai Lama has said that when possible, people should become
vegetarian, but he himself, for health reasons, eats some
meat. What is important is that you do the best you can
to avoid harming others, improving as you can day by
day.
On this page in our
book Teachings from a Vajrasattva Retreat,
Lama Zopa says: "If you are not a vegetarian, if you do eat
meat, reciting these mantras is unbelievably beneficial for
the sentient being whose body you are eating. Otherwise,
your eating the meat can become heavy negative karma." The
referenced page provides the mantras to say. Our booklet
The Yoga of Offering
Food provides additional information
on how to transform eating into a spiritually beneficial
act.
16. Does your site provide free audio where it guides
the listener towards chanting the mantras etc?
You can listen online to Lama
Zopa Rinpoche chanting Om Mani Padme Hum and the Praises
to Tara.
17. My family has had to put down our beloved family
dog because off serious health problems. We could not bear
to see him suffer anymore. I have since been thinking of the
karmic consequences. Was it the right or wrong decision?
The Buddha said “Do not kill”, but he also realized
that life is complicated. What really matters is your motivation.
If your motivation was to relieve or avoid the suffering
of your beloved pet, then the act becomes a bit like the
time in a previous life when the Buddha realized that a person
would kill many people on a boat. He chose to kill the person
out of compassion to avoid not only the sufferings of the
people he would murder but also the terrible consequences
that would result to the would-be murderer himself. Some
bad karma no doubt happened, but the Buddha was able to purify
it and his compassion greatly lessened it. In any case you
can purify any negative karma that was incurred and do practices
to benefit your beloved pet right now.
You might find the following teaching, entitled Bad
and Good Depend on the Individual Person's Interpretation by
Lama Zopa Rinpoche helpful. Also, Lama Zopa offers advice
on specific ways to benefit animals including at the time
of their death in Advice
on Benefiting Animals.
18. I'm just an average westerner: a father, worker and
husband with two kids and two dogs. Even though I´m
interested in Buddhist methods and teachings, they take most
of my time and it´s impossible for me to practice hours
every day. So I'd be very thankful if you could give me some
advice on how could I practice buddhism daily given my circumstances.
When Buddhism was only in countries in the east, like Tibet,
people wanting to study the Dharma went to a monastery. Many
lay people were devout Buddhists, and like you and me they
had jobs, children, and dogs. There were practices that they
could do too such as making offerings, reciting mantras,
studying, transforming their minds and helping others. Since
in the west, there are no rich monasteries to go 'retire'
to to devote all our time to practice we are almost all working
for a living, even monks and nuns. So we integrate Dharma
into our very busy daily lives. The good news is we can do
this.
The benefits of Dharma really come from watching your mind
and slowly changing what you don't like about it. So we can
develop (slowly) improved mindfulness of our actions, our
speech, and our mental state and then slowly change. Everyday
life is very good for this because we are constantly interacting
with people and things we like or hate.
We can also read books and study the Dharma to learn how
to transform our minds. As we do this we not only improve
our own situation but we also impact those around us and
ultimately the whole world. We can learn to see our jobs
as an opportunity to help others, for example. We will make
our own lives more meaningful. Lama Zopa talks about this
in In Search of a
Meaningful Life and the Archive publication Making
Life Meaningful.
We can do other practices besides meditation that are of
benefit. Lama Zopa explains in The
Benefits of the Existence of Statues and of Making Statues
how we can gain merit. We must do this even if we do spend
hours meditating or else our meditations will not ripen. So
we can daily make offerings at our shrine, bless and dedicate
our food, etc.
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