Lama Zopa Rinpoche

of Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyü and Gelug. Practitioners of Bön are called Bönpos. The founder’s
full name was Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche. Yungdrung is the name of one of the Bön
traditions, they do consider Tonpa a buddha and the Yungdrung school is essentially
Buddhism. Some scholars assert that Bön arose only in the eleventh century and was
therefore not a pre-Buddhist religion in Tibet and that the religion that did precede
Buddhism was probably not called Bön.
17. (Tib: lam-rim). See Teachings from Tibet, appendix 2, for a translation of Atisha’s text.
18. See Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, pp. 49–50. The book contains a complete
biography of Lama Atisha.
19. Tib: sem shin-tu tra-mo.
20. Also known as the four vital points of analysis, this is one of the main techniques for
meditating on emptiness.
21. See Rinpoche’s The Perfect Human Rebirth for extensive teachings on this topic.
22. The Sangha consists of different levels of ordination: entering , rabjung ( pravrajya) or rabjungma
( pravrajyi), with eight vows; novice, getsul (sramanera) or getsulma (sramaneri), with thirtysix
vows; and fully ordained, with 253 vows for monks and 364 vows for nuns. The tradition
of fully ordained nuns has been lost in Tibet, where the only nuns’ vows are the rabjungma
and getsulma. At present, Western nuns in the Tibetan tradition wishing to take full ordination
do so in other traditions, such as the Chinese or Vietnamese, but the International Congress
on Buddhist Women’s Role in the Sangha, supported by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, is
investigating how full ordination in Tibetan Buddhism can be reinstated. See also Mandala,
April 1988, “Focus on Full Ordination for Buddhist Women,” at fpmt.org.
23. Rinpoche is referring to the famous Jataka tale of the Buddha, who, in a life when he was
a bodhisattva prince, came across a starving tigress and her dying cubs and sacrificed his
body so that she and her cubs could live.
24. V. 13. (In the bibliography as Songs of Spiritual Experience.)
25. Lama Zopa’s residence in California, near Santa Cruz.
26. This is Buddha Amitabha Pure Land in Washington State, where Rinpoche has a retreat
house.
27. Tib: rab-rib.
28. Buddhist philosophy lists three main causes of suffering : the three poisons of ignorance,
attachment and anger. The six root delusions consist of those three plus pride, doubt and
deluded views, and, from these six, the twenty secondary delusions, such as envy, laziness,
dullness and so forth, arise. See The Mind and Its Functions, pp. 137–62.
29. From Praise to Shakyamuni Buddha. Some translations say “defective view,” some “mirage”
for rab-rib. Taken from Essential Buddhist Prayers, Volume 1, p. 76.
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