Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 47-minute teaching, Lama Zopa Rinpoche explores how individual peace of mind transforms the world. He begins with the four immeasurables—equanimity, loving kindness, compassion, and sympathetic joy—showing how anger and attachment in one person’s mind disturb others, while equanimity and genuine care create conditions for peace. He emphasizes starting these practices with those you dislike, building determination and personal responsibility. The teaching then moves to guru yoga and mandala visualization, explaining how method (compassion and loving kindness) and wisdom (understanding emptiness) work together to uproot ignorance and lead to enlightenment. Suitable for practitioners seeking to understand how personal mental discipline serves the liberation of all beings.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 09 WWNN.mp3
UUID: 49ef666a-66e1-43bf-9afe-da4061f3191b
Teacher: Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1
Collection: y What the World Needs Now 1987 Audios (Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1)
Date: 1987 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.7 minutes
Words: ~1,986
I prostrate to the triple gems, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, at this time. Please meditate on the four immeasurables. How wonderful it would be if all the sentient beings abide in equanimity. being devoid of anger, attachment, discriminating sentient beings far and close. May they abide in equanimity.
I will cause them to abide in equanimity. Particularly, concentrate on the — make a promise,, make a determination to cause equanimity, to bring others into equanimity,, particularly on the the person whom one dislike or who dislike who dislike oneself. Please thus grant me blessings to be able to do this. How wonderful it is if all abide in equanimity, free from anger, attachment, discriminating sentient beings, May they abide in equanimity. I will cause them to abide in equanimity.
Please Guru grant blessings to be able to do this. How wonderful it is if all the sentient beings abide in equanimity. Free from anger and attachment. Discriminating sentient beings and falsehood. May they abide in equanimity.
I will cause them to abide in equanimity. This is important to make the time and to make a decision, taking responsibility to bring them into equanimity upon oneself. Because when we when we dis when we show dislike to some sentient beings, when we get angry to some sentient beings, then that makes them to get angry. That makes them to not be to not have the peace of mind of being in equanimity. And then when we also yeah.
And then so when we give rise to the disturbing cause, which which is a part of anger, which thought has the part of anger. Both types. And then only clean when we cling, when we cling very, very much, also causes, causes others also to not be in. Again, away from that peace of mind, you know, from that peace, you know, of being in equanimity, causes the separate, you know, to be devoid of that peace. You see?
Our mind being in equanimity. By crossing away the discriminating thought, attachment in the mind of others. Please give us grant blessings to be able to do this. Now, generating the immeasurable thought of equanimity, that is done. Now generating the immeasurable thought of loving kindness.
How wonderful it is if all the sentient beings have all the happiness and the cause. May they have all the happiness. I will cause them to have all the happiness. Please give, Buddhas, grant of blessings to be able to do this. How wonderful it is if all the sentient beings have all the happiness and the cause.
May they have all the happiness. I will cause them to have all the happiness. Please, for the blessings, for the blessings For this, one should make determination starting from the family, starting from this a person with whom one’s living with whom one lives everyday life, you know, or works sees. So starting from that, all the way to every sentient being, one should make determination, generate immeasurable thought of loving kindness. How wonderful it is that all the sentient beings have all the happiness and causes.
May they have all the happiness. I will cause them to have all the happiness. Please, grant that kind of blessings to be able to do this? Grant blessings. The reason why the last immeasurable prayer. And so, within these, there are four immeasurables.
First one is immeasurable, the thought of equanimity. And then mhmm. The The second one, praying may they have all the happiness, then immeasurable prayer in loving kindness, the good wishes. Then the third one, immeasurable, the thought of taking responsibility. Taking up the thought of taking, you know, responsibility to eliminate suffering sufferings of all other sentient beings, to eliminate the whole total entire suffering and causes of all sentient beings, and to take responsibility to cause all the happiness and causes to all sentient beings.
So like this to all the sentient beings. Then the last one, at the moment, I don’t have because at the moment, even though I wish like this, I don’t have the capability to free from all the suffering causes and give all the happiness. I don’t have a capability at the moment. So so but so Buddha, Guru Buddha, is the one who has, you see, a fully omniscient mind, perfect power, you see, the, you know, complete compassion for sentient beings, who can do perfect work for sentient beings. So upon you then, due to your power.
You see, change my attitude. Change my attitude. You see, to your to your power, you know, and then also revealing you see, by revealing the teachings and I practice and through this, I change, you know, able to change my attitude in this way, then to develop the and develop and develop, you know, the path. You see? To develop the the path that kind of wisdom within me, you know, and then achieve the the enlightenment, the state complete realization and the cessation of all the mental obscurations.
So in this way, I can cause, you see, happiness to all sentient beings. I can free all the beings from all the sufferings and obscurations. Well, that’s what that’s what it means, you know. Due to due to, you know, one’s own practice, due to one’s own merit, and then with the Karma, due to the power of the Buddha, then one of the mind is able to develop. So that’s what it means, blessing.
Together by depending on both oneself and the Buddha, they’re only able to develop the mind. faith, the understanding, faith in the karma, and the qualities, the powers of the Buddha Dharma Sangha. And then this way, having this having this, you know, mind mind having this qualities, then one is able to develop the, you know, the realizations. Of the realizations of the graduated path to enlightenment with one’s mind. How wonderful it would be if we free all the sentient beings.
from all the sufferings and causes. May they be free from all these sufferings. I will cause them to be free from all the sufferings. Please, Buddhas, grant blessings to be able to do this. So again, generate the immeasurable compassion starting from the, you see, or the from, you see, the family or starting from the person starting from the person whom one disliked or who disliked who disliked to you.
Starting from this thing, from this object, then generate immeasurable compassion on the object of all object, all the sentient beings. Make this determination of what one is going to do. How wonderful it is if all the sentient beings are free from all the sufferings and causes. May they be free from all the sufferings. I will cause them to be free from all the sufferings.
Please, Guru, grant blessings to be able to do this. How wonderful it is if all the sentient beings are free from all the sufferings and causes, I’ll may they be free from all the suffering. I will cause them to be free from all the suffering. Please give us grant blessings to be able to do this.
Now generating the immeasurable thought of sympathetic joy. How wonderful it would be if all the sentient beings are not separated away from the temporary happiness, ultimate happiness. The temporary happiness and the happiness of liberation. Those temporary happiness. The ultimate happiness, liberation, the great liberation, enlightenment.
May they not be separated away from from this happiness? I will cause them to not be separated away from this happiness. Please grant a blessing to be and will you please grant a blessing to be able to this? How wonderful it is if all the sentient beings? To not be separated away from the temporary happiness and ultimate happiness.
May they not be separated away from all the happiness. I will cause them to not be separated away from all that. Please, Guru, grant blessings to be able to do this How wonderful it is if all the sentient beings are not separated away from the temporary happiness and ultimate happiness. May they not be separated away from the happiness, I will cause them to not be separated away from all the happiness. Please Guru, grant me blessings to be able to do this.
I must achieve enlightenment to benefit all the mother sentient beings as vast as infinite space. Therefore, I’m going to meditate on the graduated path to enlightenment. I prostrate with the body, speech, mind, all that is part of me. And then offerings. I confess all the negative karmas accumulated.
I rejoice all the merits accumulated by myself. By other ordinary beings, higher beings. I’m requesting you to live until saṃsāra ends and to turn the Dharma wheel. I dedicate all my merits and merits accumulated by others to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all kind mothers, the practice of accumulating extensive merit, the cause of happiness, to generate all the realizations and bodhicitta.
Then of this mandala of me, offering the whole universe, the whole planet, visualizing pure realms with much, I think, million times much greater enjoyment than one’s own body, mind, everything, belonging, everything. But the transform there is in offerings, mandala, you know, or once on three time merits, everything. You are visualizing various offerings. Fill the whole space then without any clinging, like an orphan, to the to the sublime, you know, highest, you know, the sublime object, the merit field. Sublime object with whom that one one accumulated most extensive merit.
Those who are familiar with the with the visualization, elaborate visualization, like the merit field of the Lamrim Chenmo or Lama Tsongkhapa merit field, then who are not familiar with elaborate visualization, then one can think. Just holy Śākyamūni Buddha alone, that’s the embodiment of all the direct, indirect gurus, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. Then, natural rays come, nectar from that Buddha purifying all the wrong conceptions. from the virtuous friend up to the subtle dual view purified, especially self-cherishing thought. Then the generated replica absorbed into oneself and all the sentient beings, and generated all the realizations.
Realization of seeing the path, the realization of Buddha from there up to enlightenment, especially bodhicitta. As as you hear, then one can do the visualization in a similar way. The practice of guru yoga, prayer for the Lama, is regarded as one very important practice to fully generate realizations of the gradual path to enlightenment. As the graduated path to enlightenment, and then they have practiced. So how one can be liberated from all the sufferings and the disturbing thoughts, you know, karma, the causes.
So the very root is the ignorance. Not knowing the nature of the I. So by realizing, you see, the object object of the ignorance, what it what it perceives, you know, what it believes, you know, what it holds — the I. The hallucination, the way it grasps.
That I — what is it? Origination. Empty. That which is empty. Then for this wisdom, this wisdom being developed, you see, being possessed by the method, the, you see, loving kindness compassion thought bodhicitta, and the bodhicitta and so forth being possessed by the wisdom.
So by developing together, method, wisdom. Not only do I want to remove the root of all the problems and the causes, ignorance, even the seed of that, and as you know, even the subtle, you see, imprint of the obscurations, you know, of the mind. Then when all the obscurations are ceased, removed, and then the real the realization is completed. This this mental continuum, that time then becomes an omniscient mind. The cessation of all the obscurations which exist in that mind — that is what is called great nirvana, the liberation, you know.
That’s then with this, then one is able to