Rinpoche’s Animal Friends

By Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Forthcoming from Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive in early 2025

Lama Zopa Rinpoche asked longtime student and Kopan nun, Tenzin Namdrol, to make a book of the large collection of soft toys inscribed with Dharma messages and mantras and later gifted to students around the world. Now LYWA is publishing this book, which features more than one hundred images, along with a selection of short teaching excerpts. Rinpoche’s Animal Friends is a reminder of Rinpoche’s great love for us and his unique means to inspire and open our hearts.\

Watch Beyond Enlightenment, a short mp3 video created by Magda Torres, featuring the travel adventures of Tong Nyi, the teddy bear, and Bodhicitta, the monkey. You can also watch Facebook videos of Rinpoche reading the "little bear" message and blessing the large teddy. You can also read excerpts from Rinpoche's Animal Friends online, or go to the Related Links to view or download PDFs of sample pages from this book.

Preface

This book presents a collection of soft toys, also known as plushies or stuffies, inscribed by Lama Zopa Rinpoche and later given to delighted students around the world. Rinpoche taught Dharma unceasingly and this is just one of many methods he used to inspire students on the path to enlightenment.

During the time of COVID, when the world was in lockdown, a proliferation of soft toys began to appear in Rinpoche’s regular video teachings from his room at Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Soft toys can be comforting in difficult times and Rinpoche had found a way to help students cope with the distress caused by the pandemic.

The plushies were decorated and blessed by Rinpoche, who wrote or dictated Dharma messages and added whimsical creative touches. Rinpoche has jokingly described himself as the Lawudo comedian and the messages are infused with his characteristic humor and playfulness.

As well as being cute and cuddly, the toys feature handwritten reflections on the three principal aspects of the path—renunciation, bodhicitta and emptiness. Many of the toys are personally inscribed by Rinpoche with the Compassion Buddha’s mantra and other powerful mantras which purify negative karma just by seeing, touching and reciting them.

This book also contains a selection of teaching excerpts from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s “Teachings on Thought Transformation During the Time of COVID-19.” You can find links to the series of videos and transcripts for these teachings at fpmt.org. The teachings were transcribed live by Ven. Joan Nicell and lightly edited for this publication by Sandra Smith.

Teaching excerpts from the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive are also included. The archive numbers are 093, 119 and 1257. To access these teachings 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 can also be found on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website.

Please enjoy these photos, take time to reflect on the Dharma messages and recite the mantras. The quotes on the toys resonate with profound meaning and are a delightful and heartwarming aspect of Rinpoche’s legacy.

Sandra Smith
Palmwoods, Australia
October 2024

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