How to Practice Dharma Book
Teachings on the Eight Worldly Dharmas
Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Audiobook Available
Part of LYWA's Publishing the FPMT Lineage series.
This book deals with the eight worldly dharmas, essentially, how craving desire and attachment cause us to create problems and suffering and how to abandon these negative minds in order to find perfect peace and happiness.
"Buddhism is a house full of treasures—practices for gaining the happiness of future lives, the bliss of liberation and the supreme happiness of enlightenment—but knowing the difference between Dharma and non-Dharma is the key that opens the door to all those treasures. No matter how much we know about emptiness, the chakras or controlling our vital energy through kundalini yoga, it’s all pointless without this crucial understanding of how to practice Dharma, how to correct our actions. There are vast numbers of people who delude themselves and waste their entire life studying the most esoteric aspects of Buddhism but never understand the most fundamental point, the distinction between Dharma and non-Dharma.
"It is very easy to do Dharma activities such as reciting mantras, saying prayers, making offerings and things like that with the thought of the eight worldly dharmas. That happens. But in reality, the holy Dharma, which includes all these activities, actually means renouncing this life. Therefore holy Dharma and worldly dharma can never be done together. Nobody can do these two things—renounce this life and seek the happiness of this life with the eight worldly dharmas—at once. We can do one and then the other but never both together in the one mind at the same time."
—Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Reader Feedback
From Janice D Willis, Professor of Religion, Wesleyan University
"Thank you! My copy of Lama Zopa Rinpoche's book, How to Practice Dharma, arrived at my office address yesterday. It is simply beautiful—from the gorgeous photograph of Rinpoche that graces the cover to the stellar glossary in the back! A real triumph!
"I can hear Lama Zopa's early discourses at Kopan: 'If you mix Dharma with worldly dharma, then it is not Dharma' How wonderful to have this precious teaching—to hold in one's hands and to take to heart. Thank you and LYWA for your great work!"
From a letter written by a student to Lama Zopa Rinpoche:
I had read about the eight worldly dharmas before, numerous times, but it never really impacted on me like it did while reading your book. I wept and wept with the knowledge that after all these years of trying to learn the Dharma and thinking that I was making some progress practicing Dharma, in reality, I have never really practiced Dharma without the eight worldly dharmas controlling me. That awareness makes me cry now while writing to you. So much time has been wasted.
I scotch-taped notes on my computer, phone, water jug, food pantry—and while I am writing to you, I am thinking of other ideas to place the post-its—with the word ‘motivation’ to remind me to check my ‘true motivation.’ I have written on a note card a prayer from your book that I say before I drive my car, before I read my holy Dharma books and before I begin my morning practice and night practice. I am eternally grateful for you taking the time to write that book, for without it, I would have continued doing what I have always done, and wasted my entire life unknowingly.
You can read Rinpoche's reply to this student's letter here.
Order a print copy from our online store or access the ebook or free audiobook using the links below. You can also read this book online, access translations, or order the audiobook from Audible.com. LYWA Members can download the ebook for free.
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ISBN 9781891868283 / 9781891868269
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