These teachings were given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the Third Kopan Meditation Course, October-November 1972, and the Fourth Kopan Meditation Course, March-April, 1973, held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal. Lightly edited by Gordon McDougall.
Visit our Kopan eBook Series page to read more about the Kopan eBook Project and to find links and synopses for all the Kopan ebooks published to date
Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at the Third Kopan Meditation Course, Kathmandu, 1972. Students include Luca Corona and Steve Malasky (Steve Pearl).
Introduction
ABOUT THE 3RD AND 4TH KOPAN MEDITATION COURSES (1972–73)
In October–November 1972 and March–April 1973 Lama Zopa Rinpoche led the third and fourth meditation courses at Kopan Monastery in Nepal. The third course was attended by about fifty people and the fourth course had around 120 participants. These historic courses from Kopan Monastery’s formative years were life-changing for many students and helped lay the foundation for the worldwide FPMT community. Author Adele Hulse describes these courses and the development of Kopan in general in Big Love: The Life and Teachings of Lama Yeshe.
LYWA director Nick Ribush writes:
I stumbled into the third course not knowing anything about Tibetan Buddhism and came out of it wanting to know more, so I finished up staying at Kopan for the next five years. I also wanted to help Lama Yeshe and Rinpoche as best I could, so I got involved in organizing the fourth course and working with Rinpoche on the course text, The Wish-fulfilling Golden Sun.
The Wish-fulfilling Golden Sun, a lamrim text by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, third edn., January 1974. Courtesy of Nick Ribush.
The first edition of this book had been compiled by students from the second course (March 1972) and the way Rinpoche taught was to read from the text and comment on what he’d just read. Students at the fourth course were taught from the first edited edition in the same way. I had taken skimpy notes at the third course and slightly better ones at the fourth, but Brian Beresford, a student from Dharamsala, took quite detailed ones. I edited all these notes into what has become this ebook. I have described how that came about here.
The transcript was first published by students of the International Mahayana Institute, an organization of Western monks and nuns dedicated to learning and teaching the Dharma for the benefit of all beings, and came with this disclaimer:
Unfortunately, it is certain that what has been presented in this book and what was originally meant by Rinpoche resemble each other as closely as earth does sky. This is the result of the infantile clumsiness of those who attempted to interpret his holy speech while taking and rewriting these notes. For this the compilers sincerely apologize and humbly request that the holy guru will overlook these inadequacies and bless this work that it may somehow benefit each and every mother sentient being, bringing immediate release from suffering to all.
This ebook presents a lightly edited compilation of Rinpoche’s teachings from these two courses, primarily drawn from the fourth. The transcript has been lightly edited by Gordon McDougall for clarity, while preserving the flavor of these two historic courses. Page references to The Wish-fulfilling Golden Sun follow the 2016 edition, available online at LamaYeshe.com. Discourses given by Lama Yeshe at the end of both the third and fourth courses are not included here.
The archive number for these teachings is 022. To read the transcript online go to LamaYeshe.com and search by teaching title or by entering the archive number using the Search the Archive Database link on the home page. A comprehensive glossary of the Buddhist terms in this book is also available on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website.
ABOUT THE LYWA KOPAN EBOOK PROJECT
In 2024, LYWA launched a new project which involves publication of a series of ebooks of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings from the Kopan meditation courses held annually at Kopan Monastery in Nepal since the early 1970s. All of Rinpoche’s teachings from the annual Kopan courses will be converted into ebooks, including those already published on our website and those not yet published.
The Kopan courses began in April 1971 with a ten-day program attended by about a dozen people. From these early beginnings, the Kopan courses evolved to become an annual event with over two hundred attendees from all over the world. Read more here about how the Kopan courses began.
Kopan Monastery is the heart of the FPMT, the international organization founded by Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche to preserve and spread Mahayana Buddhism worldwide. The Kopan meditation courses were life-changing for countless students, and this is where many students met the Lamas, received teachings and became Buddhist. For more information about attending the yearly lamrim courses at Kopan Monastery visit KopanMonastery.com.
Visit our website at LamaYeshe.com to find more Kopan course transcripts and many other teachings, and to read about how to support our work. LYWA’s Kopan ebook project is possible due to the generous support of donors like you. Your contribution plays a vital role in ensuring that these timeless teachings continue to inspire and transform lives for generations to come. Thank you!
