Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 29-minute talk at Buddha House in 1991, Lama Zopa Rinpoche focuses on the protective power of mantras recited at the moment of death. He explains how a single recitation of certain mantras—particularly one associated with Buddha Sangye Gyachen—can shield a dying being from rebirth in lower realms of suffering and facilitate a more fortunate rebirth. He then moves to a central theme: guru devotion as the supreme practice. Drawing from the Kālacakra and Hevajra tantras, he argues that while saving millions of lives or making vast offerings over countless eons cannot bring enlightenment in a single lifetime, absolute reliance on a qualified guru will guarantee enlightenment. Guru devotion is the root practice of the whole path, he teaches, making it more powerful than any other virtue. For practitioners already engaged in guru-disciple relationships.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 TBH 1991 03 16.mp3
UUID: 88e24f83-ad05-47a0-bf7d-f841de99685e
Teacher: Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1
Collection: y Talk to Buddha House with Khensure R (Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1)
Date: 1991-03-16
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 28.7 minutes
Words: ~1,410
I’m sorry. I didn’t get to introduce or to explain the benefits of this to the other manners in which which you may not have received or you may not not haven’t heard the benefits of those mantras. This last prayer, which I repeated three times just now, even animals or anybody who is anybody who is dying, if you recite it loudly in that being’s ear, just before his gross consciousness or hearing stopped. The person that animal or that being is able to hear this. It protects It saves the being from taking rebirth in a lower realm of suffering.
This prayer is highly beneficial. This particular Buddha, Sangye Gyachen, there’s a particular this Buddha’s particular function of his, you know, his when he was a bodhisattva over time, His particular motivation or, you know, to bring the benefit for others. You see, what this, you know, particularly benefit for others, you know, to. So when he began I think I think this So after he became enlightened, his vow is really powerful. Reciting this mantra has incredible power.
Even just to hear, by hearing one time, one doesn’t get reborn in the lower realms. So perhaps you may find it useful for yourself or for others to help the most critical time, which is the death. Instead of taking a body which is more suffering, hearing this Buddha’s holy name gives the opportunity for that being to find a body where they can have more happiness, less mental and physical suffering. And those previous mantras had incredible, you know, inconceivable benefits. There’s so much that I can’t it may take much time to to explain the whole extensive benefits.
Reciting seven times a day brings benefit to others. One gets it gives opportunity when the death happens to benefit the dying one. And by the side of this mantra, by blowing on incense or perfumes, anything that apply to other sentient beings or to drink or even the incense. You know? The other sentient beings being other other sentient beings being smell.
Even even we are blessed with this mantra, reciting this mantra on the place and the people willing, Even that helps to recover the patient from the sickness or from epileptic fits or convulsions like this. And one mantra this any merit that one has accumulated multiplies one hundred thousand times. And this means the long generation mantra has also unbelievable benefits. By the one time, it purifies even the heavy negative karma, breaking of all the four root vows of the monk or nun ordination, you know, then broke the even even the higher, you know, bhikṣu, full monk who broke all the four root vows — killing, sexual misconduct, then stealing. You know?
Stealing. Okay. Take note of this. You know? Even he did all the even he received all the, you know, the four defeats or broke the four root vows By reciting this mantra one time, it purifies.
It is said in the teachings which explain the benefits. It has unimaginable benefits of reciting this mantra. There is a long mantra. This is the great yogi Milarepa who achieved enlightenment in the brief lifetime of the degenerate time. It’s the precious mantra, which he himself promised that when we recite this mantra at the time of death, one will be born in pure realms.
And by reciting this mantra and blowing on the bodies of other sentient beings, know, it purifies the karma of that being which would cause rebirth in the lower realms. The benefits of purifying karma in the three lower realms. There’s a that the dead one will meet. When we will meet at the time of death, in the pure realm called Amitābha, the pure realm of Amitābha. So one can recite if one is in need.
So with the motivation of bodhicitta, one can recite any of these mantras, otherwise at all or any of these. So in this way, even one eats the meat with attachment, but even with some kind of thought benefit for that animal, know, if I eat meat by reciting this mantra, by blowing, by dedicating it to a good rebirth, the animal is receiving some benefit this way, not only that we eating his body that is so much cherished by that being. Even the food is eaten for the happiness of oneself. But at least doing a small practice like this, animal that animal receives some benefits. So there’s some good things.
It’s actually not completely useless. So I want to say a few words to the students there, the board the members of the Adelaide Center, the students whom I met and whom those who is there any students whom I haven’t met. However, dedicating your life to benefit sentient beings through the center. I’m happy to say a few words about that And to say hello to all the dear, you know, the sincerely sincerely dedicated students. Bob White, Pierre, Judy Patkins, Carrie Gilbert, Gary Hill, Dennis Kenny, Ingrid, Bretton Hill, Landy, Wilburn, Leslie Yemen, Josh Findley, Lily Denson, Kimball Futti, Dropeus, Francis, Gabelli.
I’m sorry. Probably, you might heard you might have heard strange names, which may which may not be there. But it’s just my you know, a bit better reading the English letters. So It is said in the Kālacakra tantra text. In all three time eons, even if one makes offerings to the Buddhas.
If one saves ten million sentient beings’ lives. Okay. Ten million sentient beings’ lives. Even so, one cannot achieve enlightenment in this life. But the guru who has oceans of knowledge gurus qualities, if one if one places the guru with the devotion, the general and the sublime realizations, one will achieve them definitely in this very brief lifetime.
And also it is said in tantra text, Hevajra, oceans of tantric wisdom. You wanna accomplish as one is devoted to the guru, one will accomplish all one’s own wishes, and one will achieve infinite merit. In Tibetan language, this means good luck. If one please the guru by making one’s own belongings, Whoever does this, this one is able to this one liberates oneself from the realm of the saṃsāra, from the three realms of, the saṃsāra, and goes to the stage of liberation. The liberation state means enlightenment.
Which means, being in the three realms of saṃsāra is like being suffocated. It what is trying to express is, you know, how there’s no freedom at all, you know, full of suffering. No opportunity to as long as we’re the saṃsāra, no opportunity to experience ultimate happiness, know, even a a second. So somebody is near death, in danger of death, then the doctor comes and then he, you know, by giving treatment, then the patient is able to breathe out, you know. So, like, he’s able to breathe out and he got the and then, you see, he’s got freedom to live, you know, able to able to live and able to do works what he want, you know, works of happiness, what he wants, he was able to do.
Something like that. So achieving the it’s, you know, on the to be, you know, to to be in pure realm, in pure realm, liberated, and then become enlightened, like like that, you know, that’s actually in so come completely free from the defilements. The great that the greatest freedom and liberation. So, anyway, so you can understand from these tantra texts. Making offerings in all three time eons and, you know, saving the life of that many beings.
You can see it’s incredible, unbelievable just when you think of that. But you see, even when you think of the, you know, you know, the advantages. It’s when you look at that, it sounds incredible. It’s unbelievable. The, let’s say, very great.
Great, you know, virtuous action. But that alone, you see, that alone you cannot become enlightened in this life. So even one doesn’t even if one doesn’t do Dharma offerings and save that many lives, But simply, places the one does the central practice, central the root practice of the whole path of enlightenment, the placing of reliance on the guru. Following the guru’s advice, one achieves general and sublime realizations, You know? You hear airplane noise?
This is the Nepalese. Zed. Zed The biggest airplane in Nepal